Prevention
by imadiehardpjofan
Summary: On hiatus, under heavy revision.
1. Prologue

Prevention - Prologue

(This is a short chapter. Future chapters will probably be 5k-10k words.)

(I've become increasingly dissatisfied with "Interference" over the past month, and have decided to (mostly) start over. There's more of a character focus here.)

(line break)

Consciousness returned slowly.

The first thing I was aware of was that I have a splitting headache. I can't quite remember why I have the headache, or why I'm here.

I sit up with some effort, remembering now. The mission I've given myself, to go back in time 23 years, and undoing all the damage that has been wrought by the Dark Lords. Dark Lords, plural. There was more than one.

How much time do I have?

I examine my surroundings, and then myself, for a brief moment. No clothes, no wand. Fantastic. It wasn't unexpected - my calculations indicated that I could only use this spell on a living soul, and nothing else - but it was inconvenient if nothing else.

The good news is no one is around here. That was why I picked this forest - for the isolation. A way to ensure that no one knew of my arrival. I wouldn't spend the rest of my life in a mental institution for rambling about needing to prevent the future. Or, worse, in Azkaban for being a time criminal. I very much did not want that.

Unfortunately, I have no clothes and no wand. I would need to get some, and I'm not very proficient with wandless spells. I could only cast one if it was simple enough. There were even fewer spells that I could cast without a wand _or_ voice.

I had options, however. A spoken wandless Disillusionment Charm was sufficient to ensure no one could see me, even if it took more effort than the spell would have under normal circumstances. Now, what time was it? And what day and year was it? Had I landed in the right time? I was sure my calculations were accurate, but I needed to double-check them.

I would need to get back to civilization for the answer to that question.

If only I had a wand… well, no matter. I would find one soon enough. I Disapparated, reappearing in a very familiar village.

It was Godric's Hollow, the birthplace of Harry Potter. I needed to check the day, though, and the year. It was dark, so I was pretty close to midnight.

And there was a man walking down the street. I now had the means with which to get my information.

I Apparated right behind him, with an ear-splitting _CRACK_. Apparition was relatively simple to do without a wand or voice, and I had to take advantage of the resources that I had. He turned around, but not fast enough.

The Disarming Charm sent his wand flying; he tried to draw a second one, but I had caught his first wand. Well, not really caught his first wand. I cheated by using the wandless Summoning Charm to make sure it was on the right trajectory. At any rate, before he could draw his second wand, I had Stunned him, and he was falling backwards. Oh, that was kind of mean. I added a Cushioning Charm for when he hit the ground. I relieved him of his second wand, and his third wand, and his fourth - Merlin, how deep did this man's paranoia run? He was worse than Moody, just with none of the competence. Moody would never have fallen for that trick with the Apparition. On the other hand, he had been defeated by Crouch Junior and _Pettigrew_ at the start of my fourth year, so maybe he wasn't as good as he advertised. Ah, I'm rambling.

Now with a wand that I had forcibly taken from its owner, its allegiance shifted to the one who had defeated him. Me. No longer was I burdened with the disadvantage of not having a wand. But first off, clothes. I stole the man's clothes, charmed them to fit my side, and conjured a sheet over him to save his modesty. Unfortunate, but needs must. A nonverbal _Incarcerous_ wrapped ropes around the Stunned man. Another nonverbal spell, an _Enervate_ , woke him up.

Almost immediately, he began to yell. I sighed. " _Imperio_." He went silent.

"Tell me what year it is," I commanded.

"1981," he said in confusion. "How do you not know what year-" I adjusted my commands, and he did not voice the rest of his thought.

"And what day," I asked.

"October 31st," he said, still sounding confused. If I was better with the Unforgivable Curses, I could get him to answer tonelessly, but the true expert practitioners of the Unforgivables - like Mulciber with the Imperius, Bellatrix with the Cruciatus, and Rowle with the _Avada Kedavra_ \- are all quite insane. I quite like sanity, so I don't use these spells very often. It's not a trade-off I'm willing to make.

I cast again. His watch unclasped itself from his wrist and flew to my hand. It was ten minutes to ten, I didn't have much time to act. Any minute now, Voldemort would arrive and try to kill James and Lily Potter. I knew that without my intervention, he would succeed, only to be forcibly discorporated before he could kill their one-year-old son.

It was the future for these people. It was part of my history.

I knew the approximate location of the Godric's Hollow memorial to James and Lily that had been enacted after their deaths, having visited it before. It wouldn't be here now, before they had died, but I could use it to tabulate the approximate location where they would be, and where Voldemort attacked.

But what to do with the bound man at my feet? I sighed. This man was an innocent in all of this, and he probably hadn't been expecting to be subjected to one of the Unforgivable Curses. If I'd had more time… but that was a pointless train of thought to go down. All the cars would derail.

"In one minute," I told him, "these ropes will disappear. When they do, you will report your Imperiusement to someone else - probably your superiors. After you do that, you will no longer be under my control."

I needed to prevent James and Lily Potter from being killed… _tonight_. With less than ten minutes to act, I might add, since that was the time of Voldemort's arrival. But I also needed to do right by _everyone_ , including the man I had just Imperiused. I owed it to him to make sure he got the proper psychological attention and help he would need after being under the spell. And I didn't want to leave a drooling vegetable by trying to Obliviate him and failing to do it correctly.

It was 9:50 PM. There was no time to lose. I Apparated to my destination…

And saw nothing where the house should have been. Absolutely nothing. I frowned in confusion. What?

I knew this was the right place. It was the right street name, I knew that. And from the nearby houses, which looked the same as they had when I had visited the Potter memorial in the future, this was the right location. But there was nothing here. Had my presence inadvertently affected the timestream, caused Voldemort to attack some other day?

Or… they _had_ been under the Fidelius Charm. But Pettigrew had betrayed the location to Voldemort, so shouldn't it have been lifted? Or perhaps he _would_ betray it, any moment now… in which case the cottage would become visible, any moment now. Or perhaps it was because he had betrayed the location to _Voldemort_.

I absently dodged around someone in a costume. He couldn't see me, and I was invisible, so it must have seemed to him as if a ghost was really in the area. The young boy in the costume laughed in delight. He and his little brother were dressed as pumpkins.

"Did you feel that chill just now? That was a real ghost," he blabbed excitedly to his brother.

"No way," the younger child said, eyes wide.

"It was too a real ghost!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

The voices died off into the distance as the two of them got farther and farther away. I felt slightly uneasy about this...

"Nice costume, mister!" a child's voice rang out ahead. I froze, not making a sound. I knew those words. I _knew those words_.


	2. Fight and Escape

Prevention - Chapter 2

Fight and Escape

(Screw poor Internet connection. This took ages to write on Google Docs. I think I was better off with Microsoft Word.)

 _Previously on Prevention…_

" _Nice costume, mister!" a child's voice rang out ahead. I froze, not making a sound. I knew those words. I_ _ **knew those words.**_

Those were the words that Voldemort had heard from a young child, seconds before he arrived at the home of the Potters to kill all three of them. Tom Riddle had, thankfully, spared the child who'd spoken to him because it was not necessary to kill him. This did, however, mean that I had even less time to act than I thought.

I was suddenly gripped by indecision. Should I intervene? If I tried to fight him, I would almost certainly die. I often thought little of people who used the strategy of pure power to win, but it had historically worked out pretty well for him.

Should I risk the possibility of total abject failure of my mission - to make the whole country safer from the Dark Lords that had torn it to pieces - to save the lives of only two people? After all, if I let things play out like they had originally, Voldemort would kill the Potters and then be discorporated. In the chaos that would follow losing their master, I could assassinate all of the worst Death Eaters when they were in Azkaban, and move on to mowing down the others. I could even save young Harry Potter from his treatment at the Dursleys, the years that had warped him so badly that he'd never been able to be completely sane. By killing Bellatrix, Mulciber, and Dolohov alone, I would be saving hundreds of lives. Not even to mention the lives that would be saved if I destroyed the entire Death Eater contingent. And all I would have to do is let two lives end, right here, right now, at the hands of Voldemort.

It was brutal. It was utilitarian. It was brutally utilitarian. Did I want to be that kind of person, the person who would sacrifice the few in order to save the many? Could you treat people as if they were simply parts of a math equation, subtract the two who would die tonight, and add the hundreds who would have their lives if I waited? If I intervened to save Lily and James tonight, I might not even succeed in saving them, and I too would die for trying to deny the Dark Lord his prize. Their lives would be lost anyway, and mine too… and the country would be destroyed by mad Dark wizards again. Logic dictated that I should allow them to die, because then I would survive. An alive me could then wipe out the entire Death Eater contingent by assassinations, thereby preventing the worst of the damage of the Second War from being done. Hundreds and thousands of lives could be saved in the future, and all I had to do… was let these two die. Like a calculating bastard, who thought of people as parts of mathematical equations. Of course you can subtract two if you add one hundred.

I absolutely refused to be that kind of person. I was not Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter, or Lord Voldemort, and I would _not_ treat people as if they could be sacrificed. It wasn't my right to sacrifice the lives of the few on behalf of the lives of the many. I could not, _would not_ , make that decision for another living being. Either I would save the few _and_ the many… or I would fail to save either. There was no middle ground. I could not decide who lived and who died.

No, I would stay, and stand against Voldemort. Not directly, in a contest of pure power - that would be suicide. But there is more than one way to skin a kneazle. I had a number of strategies I could use against him, and hopefully one or more of them would work.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Voldemort rounding the corner. He was on the same street at last.

I _still_ couldn't see the bloody house, because I had not been told the Secret by Peter Pettigrew. Voldemort had, though. It was going to be an awfully hard time helping James and Lily Potter survive Voldemort's attack when I couldn't even see their house. Still, I had a number of methods that I could use, even in this instance.

Hiding behind a garbage can, I cast the _Avis_ and _Oppugno_ charms as fast as I possibly could. Within five seconds, I had a veritable sixty birds. The birds were only one measure of many, though. I continued to cast even as the birds converged on his position, this time with Patronus Charms.

 _Attack Voldemort,_ I commanded them. The Dark Lord had just gotten to the blank patch of air that was the house in which his enemies were hiding. He yanked back on a blank patch of air that must have been the door, and laughed in satisfaction at seeing his enemies caught on the back foot. I heard screaming from inside, but couldn't discern it - damn that Fidelius Charm. I knew what was being said, though.

(" _Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off"_ )

And then my birds were upon him, interrupting James Potter's would-be death. Voldemort yelled in confusion and anger, but mostly confusion. He slashed his wand, and flames erupted from it, incinerating the birds. Unfortunately, I hadn't the time to Disillusion them, so he got all of them.

"James!" I screamed, hoping he could hear me - because I sure as shit couldn't hear him. " _I'll_ hold him off! _You_ should run!" Unfortunately, the act of screaming gave away my position, and I swerved as Voldemort's Killing Curse obliterated the trash can that I had been hiding behind. I Vanished the remains of the trash can. I heard James Potter's yells from inside the house. I still couldn't tell what was being said, due to the Fidelius, but I could tell his yell was a negation of my statement, that it was a statement that he was staying, determined to fight to the very end. That we had a better chance of delaying Voldemort from his goal of killing all of them if there were two people, instead of one, to hold him off.

Bloody _Gryffindors_. Still, I couldn't honestly blame him, not when I was _also_ putting everything on the line to save another person. And really, what kind of father would he be if he wasn't defending his family?

Before Voldemort could cast again, the Patronuses were upon him. He laughed as they converged on him - _Patronuses, really?_ \- I imagined the look on his face said, before he remembered something very important.

Patronuses are immune to most spells, because they are incorporeal. He slashed his wand in my direction, hoping to dispel the Patronuses by killing the caster. A wave of fire rolled towards my direction, some of it taking the form of a dragon and other parts taking the form of chimeras. Fiendfyre. Well, _this_ couldn't be dealt with easily.

Remembering I was still invisible, I Apparated again, envisioning my destination. I Apparated so closely to Voldemort that our positions actually overlapped with each other.

I rematerialized into existence in a truly uncomfortable position, my head just below the Dark Lord's armpit. I quickly moved to a new position, right below the Dark Lord's arm, simultaneously grabbing the limb in order to throw his aim off.

"Now, James!" I shouted, "Use your form!"

Voldemort yelled, trying to shake me off, but my Patronuses were still attacking him and he couldn't use a Killing Curse on me because my position directly overlapped with his. It would be fatal for the both of us. Of course, if I died, that would put quite a wrench in my plans to save the country from the Death Eaters and those like them. But I was willing to take the chance that Voldemort wouldn't do something that resulted in him being discorporated just to take out one of his enemies.

James Potter in stag form became visible, finally leaving the boundaries of his Fidelius-charmed house. He charged right at the Dark Lord. Voldemort tried to cast the Killing Curse at him, but I had his wand arm. I twisted it again, throwing his spell off-target again. The Patronuses continued to smash into Voldemort again and again and again.

Tom Riddle yelled, sending a cascade of violent magic in every possible direction. Magic responded to his intent, and the Patronuses dissipated. James Potter the stag flew back with great force before he reached Voldemort. I was separated from Voldemort, flying through the air, but managed to draw my second wand, charming the shoes that I had stolen earlier so I remained airborne.

" _Homenum revelio,"_ said Voldemort, because I was still invisible. I dropped the Disillusionment Charm a second before he finished casting the human presences spell, and hurled bits of ice from my second wand at the master of the Death Eaters. He sneered, casting a massive fireball in the direction of the ice, before turning and heading into the house, to harm the already injured stag.

I Disapparated out of the way of the fireball, reappearing closer to the house this time. I cast _Sonorous_ on myself and then screamed, " _AVADA KEDAVRA_!" as loudly as I possibly could. Except I had screamed the words, instead of actually casting the spell. The idea was to bluff the Dark Lord into feeling real alarm, causing his attention to be distracted so that James the stag would have free rein to attack. I couldn't see Voldemort's reaction but I could hear his yell of pain from James Potter crashing into him in stag form. That sounded like a major setback, but in reality, that wouldn't have been nearly enough to handle the Dark Lord of many acronyms. I had to assume he still had his wand, and that any moment now he will cast a Killing Curse point-blank, offing the stag. There was little I could do to prevent it, when I can't even see his position. Except…

" _Accio shoes!"_ With luck, it would do the reverse of a Banishing Charm, throwing Voldemort off-balance and rendering him unable to finish his incantation. I heard swearing from inside, and another scream of pain from Riddle, from when Potter the stag crashed into him again. I heard bones crack. I was not fooled, however. Riddle was only _not_ a threat when he is discorporated or dead, and he was neither at the moment. I had to prevent him from casting _anything_ so that the stag would be free to continue attacking him, but do it in such a way that I wouldn't accidentally hit James Potter. Which would be harder than it sounded, as I couldn't actually _see_ anything in the house.

 _This should throw him off balance._ " _Faux_ _ **Kedavra**_!" I incanted, making sure to scream the last word. A completely nonlethal jet of green light left my borrowed wand and entered the house. I heard a grunt as the stag was propelled upwards and crashed into the ceiling - Voldemort's work, presumably. I conjured lions and then ordered them inside, but they stopped in confusion just outside the door. Fucking Fidelius Charm! It was really a hindrance at this point. I Banished them inside, then quickly dived behind another garbage can in case Voldemort was up. I absolutely did not need to be in his line of fire. My whole strategy against Voldemort was an indirect one. I knew that I couldn't fight him directly, so I was cheating.

The stag crashed down to the floor, groaning in pain. Gravity had done its work too. James the stag would probably be too injured to attack Voldemort very well, even if the Dark Lord was also injured. Had he been alone, this is where his fight against Voldemort would have ended. But he wasn't alone, and I refused to be useless! As long as I was able to intervene between Voldemort and his victims, _I would_.

" _Lumos Solarem_." I dived behind the trash can again, a good decision as Voldemort's curse would have blasted me to smithereens if I hadn't. A good chunk of the street exploded, throwing up lots of rocks and debris. This I could work with. I directed the debris into the house to converge on Voldemort. This wouldn't work forever. Soon he would grow tired of dealing with my attempts to interfere with his killing of James Potter, and storm out of the house and burn the whole neighborhood with Fiendfyre, forcing me to flee. And then the Potters would be dead… and Harry would live with the Dursleys. That was not something I considered an acceptable outcome, considering everything that was to happen in the second war.

I Apparated into the middle of the air. There was something solid beneath me… I knew it was the house. So I conjured a tiger, and rapidly cast _Engorgio_ on the tiger over and over and over again. I hoped the spellwork would act quickly enough to collapse the house. The Fidelius Charm couldn't hide the location of something that no longer existed, after all, could it? Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Riddle had transformed the debris into spears and sent them hurtling back in the direction from where they had come. Where _I_ would have been, if I wasn't on the roof.

" _Geminio_!" Another tiger on top of the first one. Another duplication charm, " _Geminio_!" A third one was standing on top of the second one. And again.

" _Geminio_!"

Four gigantic tigers on the exact same spot was too much. Half of the roof collapsed, sending bricks in every direction. Luckily, it wasn't the half that _I_ had been standing on. I splattered oil with my borrowed wand, noting the places where it seemed to stop in mid-air. That was where the bricks were. And now for the next salvo.

" _Confringo_!" I shouted, collapsing the other half of the roof. " _Incendio! Incendio! Invito Vinum!"_

It's pretty hard to miss a horde of collapsing bricks with a spell, even when they're invisible to you, especially when there are many of them and you only need to tag one to tag almost all of them.

I could hear Voldemort's roars of anger as tigers crashed down right next to him - not on top of him, unfortunately - followed by lots of flaming bricks. I could see the rooms coming into view. It was as I suspected. Without the existence of a _house_ to protect, the Fidelius Charm was winking out of existence. I blew a hole in the other half of the house and used a Featherlight Charm to protect myself.

The Dark Lord looked livid, maintaining a constant _Impervius_ spell so that the flaming bricks would dodge him. The tigers were on fire and were in great pain, and very angry. They took out their aggression on the nearest person to them - Lord Voldemort. He had to maintain the _Impervius_ to protect himself from the flaming bricks, so he raised his other hand, wandlessly blowing the heads off of the flaming tigers.

"James!" I shouted, finding my way over to him. "Are you alive?" The man looked horribly pale, and I had to pull him out of some of the wreckage of falling bricks. I cast a few spells. "Flame Freezing Charm," I said shortly. "Sorry about the house, but…" I turned back as Voldemort killed off the last of the flaming tigers. I slashed upwards with my wand, taking care not to use the incantation. I doubted that James Potter would have approved of necromantic corpse detonations. The remains of the dead tiger blew up in Voldemort's face, staggering him.

His eyes met mine, suddenly becoming clear and focused. "It's time to escape," he said. "Can you Apparate?"

"Where to?" I asked.

"Not important," he said. "Lily and Harry have already escaped, so nothing at stake other than our own - _fuck_ ," he said fervently as we both swerved out of the way of flaming bricks that Voldemort was directing in our direction. I pulled him out of the way of a second volley, and then cast Fiendfyre at Voldemort. The cursed flame ate through the bricks, which were only on normal fire, moving towards Voldemort's position.

"Move _now_ ," he said. "We have but seconds."

I didn't disagree. We both vanished, reappearing in the Leaky Cauldron.

Back in Godric's Hollow, Voldemort screamed at being denied his victory.

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Leaky Cauldron, 10:05 PM

"This is a bit of a dangerous place for me to be, out in the open," James observed neutrally. "Even being in a place as public as Diagon Alley doesn't mean you can't be targeted by the Death Eaters. Still, it seems as if I owe you. You intervened against Voldemort, allowing my wife and son enough time to escape. I highly doubt I'd have lasted long enough for that if it had been just me. You also almost killed me by ceiling collapse, though. I'll take it, though," he raised a hand, forestalling my apologies, "since you saved the lives of Lily and Harry."

"You may need to warn Sirius," I said. "He'll go after Peter-"

" _Good_ ," James said.

"Potter!" I exclaimed, slightly shocked. I thought James of all people would realize the foolishness of Sirius' mission that had backfired and gotten him thirteen years in Azkaban, and the rest of his days as a fugitive. "You should… probably tell him you're alive. And inform everyone you can that you were betrayed by him, and not by Sirius. They think _Sirius_ was the Secret-Keeper, after all."

"Oh, right," he said, then frowned. "Wait," he said more suspiciously, "how do you know that Peter was the Secret-Keeper? We told almost no one that fact."

"I am a Seer," I said blithely. "I predict the future."

"A Seer, who stood against Voldemort?" James asked skeptically.

"Yes," I said, enjoying the look on his face. "By the time I was possessed by the Inner Eye, I had already practiced Defense Against the Dark Arts for years. I didn't lose that skill when I gained the ability to see the future."

"You arrived almost too late," he said.

"I was warned by the Inner Eye almost too late," I spun my tale. "I believe it was trying to test my character, seeing if I would risk my own life to stand against true evil. I don't know why it waited this long. The Inner Eye works in mysterious ways."

"Seers," he muttered. "Bloody insane, the lot of them."

"One of them saved your life and those of your family," I reminded him. He flushed in embarrassment. "Oh, right," he said. "So tell Sirius I'm alive-"

"-And tell him not to pursue Pettigrew _before_ you have given conclusive evidence to the Ministry demonstrating that Peter was the Secret-Keeper. Also, not to pursue Pettigrew _alone_ under any circumstances. Any, do you understand? The rat is more dangerous than he looks. Who knows what tricks he picked up in his master's employ?"

"There's a location more secure than this one," he said, "but unfortunately I'm not able to Apparate. You saved our lives, even if you did collapse the house on both me and Voldemort, so I'm trusting you for now."

"You'd trust a complete stranger?" I raised my eyebrows. Merlin, this man really was too trusting. How had he not died already?

"You attacked Voldemort, risking your own life on behalf of my own, and that of my wife and son," he smiled. "I think you've proven you can be trusted. No one who isn't seriously brave and a good person would do something like that."

"House of the Longbottoms," I suggested. "However, they would have to trust me enough to let me in, and they don't know about that."

I had a bit of an ulterior motive for this: if I could interrupt the attack by the Lestranges, I could save Frank and Alice Longbottom from their state of being tortured into insanity. They deserved that much.

"I'll handle it," James said, fumbling for his wand before realizing he didn't have it. I sighed. "Use mine," I said, handing over my stolen wand to him. I still had two more.

"All right," he said. " _Expecto Patronum Specialis_. I am alive. We were attacked by Voldemort, the house was destroyed, but I'm alive and in the Leaky Cauldron. I'm currently too injured to be able to Apparate. We're thinking of holing up in the Longbottom residence for the time being."

"Sirius' innocence," I reminded him.

"Oh, yes," James said. He had admirable composure for how close he'd come to death; I was impressed. Then again, he had fought off Voldemort three times by this point. "Sirius, I will submit evidence to the Ministry proving that Peter was the Secret-Keeper, not yourself. Until then, keep your head _down_ and do not engage Peter. Lily, when you can, please respond with a Patronus confirming that you are also alive. You probably are, since you escaped the house, but it would be nice to have confirmation. Frank and Alice - we'll be coming soon. Also, don't fire at my flamboyant companion in the red hat. This person intervened against Voldemort at a critical moment, saving my life and allowing me to delay Voldemort long enough for Lily and Harry to escape. Withhold your fire. Patronus destinations: Lily, Sirius, Frank, and Alice."

"I am not flamboyantly dressed," I said dryly, "and I do not have a red hat."

"Oh, right," James said, completely unapologetic. "Well, we can fix that, can't we?" A wave of the wand he'd borrowed off of me, and a red hat was on top of my head. A color-changing charm, and the robes I'd stolen were now bright pink.

I stared at him. "I hate you."

"Lies," he said, "you love me. Everyone does."


	3. Conversations and Trust

Prevention – Chapter 3

Conversations and Trust

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _I stared at Potter. "I hate you."_

 _"_ _Lies," he said. "You love me. Everyone does."_

"Do you have a specific rendezvous point in mind?" I asked him. "Leaky Cauldron is, as you say, too high profile. But all of the other places are under Fidelius, so I won't be able to Side-Along Apparate you to them. And you're too injured to Apparate on your own."

"And whose fault is that?" he asked, but it wasn't aggressively; he was smiling.

"Voldemort's," I said, grinning, "because if he wasn't in the house trying to kill you, I wouldn't have had to collapse the house on you both."

"You could have proceeded into the house," he laughed, then grew more serious. "Of course, if you had tried to fight him head-to-head, we'd both be dead." He paused. "That rhymes."

I sighed, introducing my face to the palm of my hand. "Yes, yes it does. So, um, anyway." I coughed.

"Oh yeah," James said, remembering now. "Rendezvous points. Well, Sirius has a safehouse that's not under Fidelius, but no one but he or I know where it is… so you wouldn't be able to Apparate me there. Add the fact that if you did, Sirius would probably shoot you on sight. He doesn't know, after all, that you just saved all of our lives."

A doe Patronus arrived, addressing James directly. "James, I have received your message. I'm glad you're alive, when you stayed to fight him off, I thought you were dead for sure. I'm at Frank and Alice's right now, under _their_ Fidelius. While I'm glad for the intervention of your friend in the red hat, I don't know this person's motivations, level of trustworthiness, or if you have just befriended someone who has allegiance to some third side in the war. I've sent Frank Longbottom, alone, to meet the two of you. If your friend's trustworthy, he will Apparate both of you past the Fidelius. If not… well, we're not there yet."

Sirius' Patronus, the dog, arrived next. "The hell I'm not going to engage Peter!" it barked. "He betrayed the Marauders and now, the rat will pay! I'm on him right now, he's running away from me but I can catch him soon enough."

James sighed. "I could have been more forceful about that," he said. " _Expecto Patronum Specialis_. Sirius, the rat is more dangerous than he looks. Who knows what tricks he picked up in his master's employ? Also, Sirius, if you go off like this and pursue Peter alone, then if Peter doesn't kill you, Lily and I will, for your sheer stupidity. Get the fuck over yourself, Padfoot. I'm not pursuing Peter right now and neither should you. There are priorities larger than Peter here, like baby Harry, and proving your innocence before the Ministry."

I looked at James, and wagged my finger. "The first part of your warning was basically my statement, pretty much word-for-word. I'm glad you and I weren't in the same year at Hogwarts, otherwise you would have plagiarized all of my essays."

"If the words are appropriate for the occasion," he said, "why wouldn't I use them?"

"I now understand why your grades were so lackluster in school," I rebutted. He threw his head back and laughed, a joyous sound. Then he winced at the impact that it had on his ribs.

Frank Longbottom materialized into existence a few meters away, looking around. I suppose the pink clothes and the red hat were basically a red flag, because he immediately zoomed in on James and myself. The Auror looked different from how I'd seen his son Neville in the second war, though I supposed it was to be expected. Frank Longbottom had had years of Auror training, taught by Moody himself, and Neville was one of many misfits who had been forced to drop out of school to fight Voldemort, and had never finished his education. He'd been pretty good at fighting, but he had never had his father's sheer power or experience. That was probably the reason for the difference between the two men.

Neville had more than made up for it with his courage and determination, though. He deserved a far better fate than the one he'd gotten… Cruciated into insanity like his parents had been. Neville's fate left a sour taste in my mouth. And so, when I saw Frank Longbottom, my heart twisted. The Longbottoms were good, strong, and brave people. They deserved better… and I would make sure that they _received_ better, this time around.

I could do nothing less.

"James," Frank said, "is this your friend, the one you say saved you at Godric's Hollow?"

"Not just me," James said, shaking his head. "Alone, I couldn't possibly have delayed Voldemort enough to allow Lily and Harry to escape. With my friend's help, we delayed him long enough for that, _and_ neither of us died in the process! I was fully expecting to die tonight, because my opponent was, well-"

"I understand," Frank said. "So, this makes the fourth time for you?"

"I guess," James said, scowling. "That might make him more determined to come after me, you know, since we have defied him more times. It's not all fun. The more times you escape him, the higher priority the Death Eaters put on collecting your head. I could do without the high profile, but…" he sighed. "It comes with defying the most evil wizard that ever existed." He turned to me. "Voldemort is going to want to collect your head as well."

I waved him off. "He wouldn't be the first person to have tried. I'm quite used to attempts on my life." I would have said more, but forcibly shut myself up. I didn't need to reveal too much information about myself.

"Are you used to attempts on your life by _him_ , though?" Frank Longbottom leaned forward, looking honestly concerned. "Attempts to kill you by Death Eaters are one thing. Their master, however… not so much. He's a lot harder to fight."

"Who said anything about _fighting_ him?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. "I cheated."

"There's no such thing as cheating in a duel," Frank Longbottom said, crossing his arms. "In a fight for your life-"

"-there are no rules," James and I finished one of Alastor Moody's trademark phrases. Frank frowned. "What, you know that phrase too?"

"Alastor Moody taught multiple people," I said evasively. "And I did not even _duel_ him, that would be suicide."

"So," Longbottom asked, seeming perplexed, "how did the two of you manage to hold Voldemort off from long enough for Lily and Harry to escape, if you weren't even dueling him? My wife and I dueled him together three times, we were barely fast enough to escape with our lives, and each time our objective was only to survive just long enough to make our escape. It is hard enough to survive his attempts when the only lives you need to protect are your _own_. How in the nine hells did you manage it when you needed to protect not only your own lives, but also those of Lily and Harry? I _know_ you succeeded, because they're still alive… but how?"

"I cheated," I said. "Unfortunately, the methods that I've used are probably not going to work on Voldemort ever again. He adapts to unexpected strategies like clockwork. Nothing works twice on such a man. He's kind of similar to Dumbledore in that respect." I almost mentioned Potter, but _that_ was future knowledge.

"Do you think they would work on the Death Eaters?" James asked. I nearly jumped. Embarrassingly, I'd actually forgotten he was there for a second. I shrugged. "It's anyone's guess as to whether they would. Death Eaters usually rely on pure power, numbers, and intimidation to win. In terms of strategy… only a few of them have that. So…maybe?"

James looked at the giant clock on the wall. "It's getting late, and we're discussing things that we probably shouldn't be discussing in the open, in the Leaky Cauldron. Frank, I believe this person is trustworthy, for taking on _Voldemort_ in order to help me save my family." He looked at me with pure, undiluted gratitude. Again, my heart twisted. It was a long time since someone had given me that look, and even longer since I had felt like I'd earned it.

"Your wife and Auror Longbottom would be more suspicious," I said. "I helped save you and I intervened against Voldemort… but bravery is an attribute that even evil people can have." I knew _that_ truth very well. I'd seen the bravery and loyalty displayed by Death Eaters like Phillip Trentworthy, John Warrington, Reginald Yaxley, Bartemius Crouch, Gareth Weyland, and Draco Malfoy. They continued to stay, fighting their hardest, even when the going got tough and the chances of survival became untenable. Where any ordinary thug would have become overwhelmed by his fear and fled for his life… they stayed, and defiantly fought to the end. I admired their bravery and loyalty, even as I hated the men themselves and wished fervently that their loyalty had had worthier objects.

"Very true," Longbottom said, examining me at length for a moment. I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "Who are you?"

"I'm not a Death Eater, if that's what you were asking," I answered.

"I know _that_ ," Longbottom said. "You fought Voldemort in Godric's Hollow, risking your own life, and no Death Eater would have done that." I thought of refuting his statement – Draco Malfoy's loyalty _was_ a great thing (even I would admit that much), but the Dark Lord had managed it improperly, and the Malfoy scion had betrayed him because the Dark Lord had Cruciated his mother – but that, also, was future foreknowledge. Also, revealing such information would make Auror Longbottom doubtful that I really was not a Death Eater.

"Unless it was staged," Longbottom said, and here, the influence of his teacher Alastor Moody showed.

James sat up suddenly, violently, then winced from the pain that shot through him. " _What_?" he exclaimed, outraged that someone would question the heroics of the one who'd saved his family. _His family._ "You weren't there, Frank," he said heatedly. "You didn't see what happened. No one could have thought together a false flag operation that was _that_ elaborate, especially not Voldemort."

"James," I said, "don't overexert yourself. You've been injured. You shouldn't be shouting."

"It's possible, and I can't rule it out," Longbottom said. "Voldemort realizes that killing you in a duel is a hassle and takes too long, so he stages a fight between you and him, and then he stages a Death Eater's intervention. The Death Eater pretends to fight Voldemort on behalf of James, but it's all choreographed. The heroics earn the Death Eater the trust of James Potter, who is therefore not on his guard when the Death Eater slits his throat in the night."

James stood up, but I pulled him back down. "How do I prove you can trust me?" I asked, addressing Longbottom. The Auror turned to me.

"Prove that Voldemort didn't send you," he said. "After all, if you were a Death Eater, you could have easily been there when Pettigrew revealed the secret. And then you would have known the location and known the precise time at which to intervene."

James didn't try to stand up again; he knew I'd prevent him. "That's outrageous!" he blurted. "She collapsed a house on the Dark Lord's head! Do you really think he'd plan for something that could give himself severe injuries?"

"A collapsing house would be a threat to an _ordinary_ wizard who was trapped inside it, but not _him_ ," Longbottom said. "So, perhaps-"

"Voldemort has broken bones," I interrupted. "Broken bones that he has because _I_ kept interrupting his Killing Curses."

"Exactly!" James gesticulated wildly. "Do you really think he's the type of person to go for a long con that involves himself _sustaining physical injuries_ because his Killing Curses are getting interrupted? He's too arrogant to play a game like that."

Longbottom frowned, not quite swayed. "That is a psychological profile consistent with Voldemort's behavior in the war so far," he said, "but he could be acting in a deliberately misleading manner. Maybe he _wants_ us to believe that he's too arrogant to play a game like that."

"What would it take?" I asked. "An Unbreakable Vow that I have never, am not, and will never be a helper of Lord Voldemort?"

Frank hesitated. "We'll need another one, that you mean no harm to anyone in Longbottom Manor. Even if you swear the first one, we don't know that you're not a third player in all of this who means harm to both sides." That was kind of prescient of him, since I hated Voldemort and Dumbledore. But I didn't hate the members of the _Order_. They were mostly good people, led badly astray by their leader.

"That one is quite complicated," I said. "What if a Death Eater entered Longbottom Manor and attacked you, and the Unbreakable Vow stopped me from harming them?" Longbottom scowled, realizing I was right.

"I will swear Unbreakable Vows to the following effects," I continued. "One, that I have never, am not, and will never be a Death Eater or a supporter of Lord Voldemort. Two, that I will not harm any of the Longbottoms or the Potters _unless_ -" Frank tensed, almost drawing his wand "-it is in defense of either myself or of another human. Incidentally, Death Eaters and Voldemort are not considered human by this definition."

The man paused, his mind going through possible loopholes. If I swore the second statement and was a Death Eater, I could loophole the second statement, and harm the Longbottoms and the Potters while claiming it was in defense of myself. However… then I would die by trying to swear an Unbreakable Vow for the first statement.

"That seems acceptable," he said finally. "But we will need your name. James, will you be the Bonder?"

"I still think you're being overly paranoid," Potter said. "This witch has proven herself by facing off against Lord Voldemort himself-"

"You trusted Pettigrew, too," I sighed, sad that I had to play Devil's Advocate here. "Longbottom here is correct to err on the side of caution." Warring emotions flew across the Marauder's face, upset to be reminded that one of his friends had betrayed him.

"We will need your name," said Neville's father.

Oh, right. Damn, less than a day into this, and I have already blown my cover, by having to swear an Unbreakable Vow to prove my trustworthiness. I could refuse to provide my name, of course, and run a solo act – but that was _dangerous_. It was dangerous to have no support group, no one willing to defend you, and have to rely exclusively on yourself. And what if I was found, alone, by Voldemort or Dumbledore, and they discovered what _I_ knew? I knew that I _was_ taking a risk by putting my trust in the Order of the Phoenix members, since I could easily wind up in Dumbledore's hands – but it was necessary to take the chance. If nothing else, if Dumbledore tried anything untowards, I could retaliate by spewing out _his_ interpretation of the prophecy. I surmised that more than a few Order members would be horrified by his level of utilitarianism. I didn't approve of treating people as if they could be sacrificed, and I didn't think many of the Order members would, either. More than half of the Order defected to Potter's faction when it was revealed that Albus Dumbledore believed that teenage Harry Potter needed to _die_ in order for Voldemort could be defeated.

"Name," Frank prompted impatiently, startling me out of my thoughts. I gathered myself. I needed to save the victims of Voldemort, it was true… but I also needed to save the victims of Albus Dumbledore's utilitarianism. Perhaps my presence around members of the Order would help to stop or mitigate the damage that Dumbledore had done the first time around. It was a risk I needed to take. I hadn't quite planned to reveal my identity so early, if at all… but I was now sure that it was the best way to proceed.

"Turpin," I said, hoping that neither of them had read the Hogwarts register of potential muggleborn students. I did not need my status as a time traveler becoming known… even by them. "Lisa Turpin."

"Place your hands together," James instructed, knowing how the Unbreakable Vow was made. "For the record, I still think you're being too paranoid. Alastor's security policies should not be emulated 100% of the time. Where would we be without _trust_?"

"Your objection is noted," Frank said dryly. "Proceed anyway." My hand touched his.

"Have you, Lisa Turpin," the Auror began, "ever been a Death Eater or a supporter of Lord Voldemort in any way? Are you a Death Eater or supporter of Lord Voldemort now, and are you ever going to be one in the future?"

"No, I have not. No, I am not, and no, I will never be one," I answered. Flames flew from the borrowed wand in James Potter's hands, weaving themselves around my hands and the Auror's.

"And will you refrain from harming anyone in the Houses of Potter or Longbottom, unless it is in defense of yourself or another human being? When Voldemort and his servants are not considered human beings?" he asked.

"I will," I agreed readily. I had no problems swearing that part. The rings of fire wrapped themselves around our hands again.

In all honesty, I wondered why they didn't make more people swear Unbreakable Vows not to harm people except in defense of another. Wouldn't that basically stop murders in the wizarding world? I wondered about that. Unless there were people who hated someone so much that they were willing to break the oath and die in order to kill an enemy, or if they worked through a third party to kill their enemy, or if they left a land mine at a place their enemy was known to frequent and hoped he stepped on it… if people did swear this, would too many people be able to find loopholes? What if someone hated another individual so much he didn't consider him a person, and then loopholed the oath? Loopholes were hard to find and dangerous if someone managed to use them to circumvent an oath, but surely someone would be able to draft a series of oaths that prevented them from being used, right?

"I'm satisfied," Longbottom said, standing up from his position. "No individual who honestly meant harm would swear the Unbreakable Vow to stop themselves from harming anyone. And your restrictions are reasonable. If I harm someone who isn't attacking me or isn't a Death Eater, I deserve to lose my position as an Auror at the very least."

"If only everyone thought that," I said sadly. James made a false cough, that sounded suspiciously like " _Crouch_!"

"I cannot voice approval of that statement without violating professional ethics," Longbottom said seriously. "You understand why, of course."

( _Daily Prophet headline, June 24, 1978 –_ _ **CROUCH AUTHORIZES UNFORGIVABLE CURSES TO BE USED BY AURORS**_ )

"Yeah, I see why," James said.

"Are you good enough to Side-Along Apparate?" I asked him.

Longbottom said, "Well, we'd better be. Lily and Harry are in one of the spare rooms. We handed one over easily – they're our friends, and the times necessitate it."

(line break)

"So this is the witch who saved my husband's life from Voldemort?" asked Lily Potter, looking over me. I shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Do you always dress this extravagantly?" she asked. I flushed, "No. James conjured the red hat and charmed my robes pink so that Frank Longbottom would more easily recognize me. Now that you mention it, though…" I vanished the hat, and reverted the robes back to their original dark blue.

"James is a handful, I understand that," she said, nodding in the direction of the room in which her husband was recuperating from his injuries. "I've long since learned to just roll with his antics, as they can't be prevented."

"We should take him to St. Mungo's," she remembered. "He looked like death warmed over."

"Is it safe?" I asked. "The Death Eaters are everywhere."

"No one attacks in St. Mungo's, I believe that's the truce ground," she said, but suddenly looked not so sure of that fact.

"No one _has_ _attacked_ in St. Mungo's before," I corrected. "That does not mean it couldn't happen."

She sighed. "You may be right about that. Well, Alice knows some healing spells, but he still seems to have taken too much damage from the fight with Voldemort. We're lucky that you saved him. But he needs more medical treatment than what Alice is able to provide him with."

"The house is no more," I said. "It was destroyed." I did not mention that I had destroyed it in order to be able to _see_ inside of it, so I could rescue her husband from Voldemort.

"We have our lives," she said in response, but I could tell the loss of the house had hurt her. I shrugged off my feelings of guilt. The pile of bricks that made up the house weren't worth more than the lives of three people. I had made the best decision that I could have under the circumstances. Sadly, it hadn't quite been good enough. I was not as powerful as Dumbledore, who probably could have fought Voldemort off _and_ saved the house _and_ all its inhabitants. But I was not him… and I didn't really want to be him, either. I remembered his pronouncement that the teenage Harry Potter must die in order for Voldemort to be killed, and how he had knowingly sentenced Harry to ten years of hell with relatives who did not love him, in the name of utilitarianism… and shuddered at the thought of becoming like _him_.

I didn't have Dumbledore's power, so I had to make do with what I had. I helped save lives tonight, so I was doing good in the world regardless.

"So, where's Voldemort?" Frank asked.

"Well, I left him in a collapsing house and holding off Fiendfyre," I said. "He's probably dispelled the flames and escaped, though."

Frank spun around, eyes wide. "You cast Fiendfyre?" Right… I had forgotten that the flames were literally animated by Dark magic and not everyone would approve of having the knowledge to cast such a spell.

"My opponent was Voldemort," I said. "What should I have done? Gone easy on him?"

The Auror sat down hard in a chair, preparing to explain. "Dark magic is addicting," he explained. "It's easy to cast it over and over again, to become almost mindlessly addicted to it. It's like being an alcoholic, or a smoker. It's easy to use repeatedly, and every time a spell like it is cast, it becomes harder and harder to resist using the spell, in the same way that it becomes harder and harder to stop drinking the longer you've had the habit of alcoholism. Eventually there's a point at which it no longer becomes possible to resist. It erodes an already tenuous grip on sanity."

"You were in Professor Fletcher's class too, weren't you?" Lily asked Frank. "I remember that lecture. Naturally, the Slytherins ignored it, all determined to become Death Eaters."

I knew that wasn't quite true, that some Slytherins from my generation had notably failed to become Death Eaters. Bletchley had resisted his parents when they had tried to make him join, fighting the good fight against Voldemort until he had been killed. Tracey Davis and Marcus Flint had been unapproachable Neutrals, and left the country without ever having had allegiance to either side. Theodore Nott had resisted pressure to join from his father _and_ his grandfather, refusing under any circumstances to join "Voldemort's band of murderers," as he had put it. He'd fought Voldemort to the very end too, and in fact had died painfully for his defiance. Daphne had been a Neutral who had left the country, but Astoria had stayed because she had fallen in love with a Muggle – much to her father's consternation. (Daniel Greengrass had not been a blood purist… but he didn't believe that a Muggle and a witch should ever be together. A pureblood and a Muggle-born was fine to him… but not a Muggle and a witch.) Astoria fought with a steely determination that even shamed half of the Gryffindors, and had died in the process of removing Bellatrix Lestrange from God's green earth forever.

But every single one of these examples was from the future, so I could not cite them. Daniel Greengrass had not become a Death Eater, but he was a Hufflepuff, and didn't count. From the Marauder generation… I didn't have many examples. The only one I could think of was Regulus Black, who _had_ wanted to join the Death Eaters… and realized too late what the lifestyle of a Death Eater demanded of him.

"Andromeda is a Slytherin," Frank said. I slapped my own forehead. _Knew I'd forgotten someone_. "And she didn't become a Death Eater."

"That's like, one example," Lily argued. "Out of hundreds of people who were in Slytherin House when we were at Hogwarts."

"I have never liked the House system," I said finally. Frank, Lily, and Alice stared at me. "What?"

"The Sorting Hat judges us on traits that we have as eleven-year-olds. Whether we are more focused on bravery, loyalty, the acquisition of knowledge, or ambition. This is when people change over time. None of us are the same today as we were when we were eleven. A Gryffindor could face too many life-threatening situations, or nearly be Cruciated into losing his mind. Would he value bravery so much, after that? Would a Hufflepuff value loyalty as much, after being betrayed? A Ravenclaw might become disillusioned with the acquisition of knowledge. We are human beings, and humans are, above all else, _changeable_. We don't remain the same… but the one-word description that the Sorting Hat gives us when we are eleven years old describes and has the implication that we _do_ remain the same… for as long as we live."

"You make a compelling argument," said Neville's mother. "However, it _is_ tradition."

"Lots of things are tradition," I said. "That does not mean they are good. Muggle-baiting is a tradition. Blasting family members off the tapestry or disowning them if they are a Squib, or fraternize with Muggles and other non-pureblooded individuals, is a tradition. Do you think we should keep those as traditions? Traditions ought to be stopped if they are harmful."

"They wouldn't stand for it if you tried to remove the Sorting ceremony," Lily said dryly. "That would cause a massive shitstorm."

"Okay," I answered. "Now, do you believe you can describe _anyone_ in just one word? If I said James was brave, would you call that at all a complete description of him?"

"…No," she said. "He's brave, but also immensely irritating, but ultimately endearing. He places a high value on the trusting his friends, and… oh, my, Peter's betrayal must _hurt_."

A flicker of pain crossed her face as well. Peter had been _her_ friend too, and his betrayal had caught the whole lot of them by surprise.

I would have continued my passionate lecture on the evils of the Sorting System, but a wordless shake of the head from Alice Longbottom, and I decided not to press it. The Potters were currently reeling from the betrayal of a close friend, and lecturing them on the flaws of outdated traditions would have felt good to _me_ … but ultimately not been helpful. It didn't matter that I was _correct_ that just because something was old did not mean that it was good.

"We'll wait until later to finish this discussion," I said. Frank Longbottom yawned. "You're probably right," he said. "We should all get some sleep."

" _I_ am wide awake," I said. "I'm not sleepy."

"Even so," he said, "you should try to get some rest. You fought Voldemort, which is really exhausting – I know from experience. Trust me, you'll feel better."

"All right," I said, not really agreeing. A thought occurred to me. "Are you the Secret-Keeper?"

"Yes," he said. "How else do you think I was able to take you past the protections of the Fidelius Charm? It wouldn't have been possible if I was not the Secret-Keeper. Alice entrusted the Secret to me, and I keep the Secret, protecting the both of us. It's a system with a few holes – I still work as an Auror and so I am still on the job, meaning that I can be targeted that way – but it's still safer for the family as a whole."

"We should have done that," Lily sighed. "Why didn't we do that? We would've been safer. Instead…"

"You couldn't have known that Peter was the Secret-Keeper," Alice put her hand on the younger witch's shoulder.

"If it's any consolation," I offered, "Voldemort will probably kill Peter for the failure of his attack in Godric's Hollow. He outlived his usefulness now that he won't be trusted with anyone's Secret ever again, since his victims are alive to submit evidence that he was the traitor. And Voldemort may blame _him_ , as how else could someone have known that his attack on the Potters was going to happen right then? Only the Death Eaters knew of the time of the attack, so the only way for someone to intervene and hinder Voldemort would be for Peter to have regretted his betrayal and sent me. In his mind."

"Is this actually what happened?" Lily asked. "James would love to believe that Peter wasn't completely treasonous and had a backup plan for if he divulged the Secret to protect us even if the Secret fell. He would also love to believe that Peter, his friend, would only divulge the Secret if he was forced to do so. I was Peter's friend for less time, but still long enough for his betrayal to have been a shock. War may bring out the worst in us all… in Peter's case, cowardice."

"No," I said. "I was not sent by Peter. I am a Seer. That is how I knew the time of Voldemort's attack, and how to intervene. Peter was, unfortunately, completely treasonous. He revealed the Secret of his own free will directly to Voldemort, with no threats or torture beforehand – only sheer fear at Voldemort's presence compelling him to reveal it. The only threats were implied, since he _was_ standing in front of _Voldemort_. But it took almost no effort – literally, only Voldemort breathing menacingly – to get him to divulge the Secret."

Several people spoke at once in the aftermath of my statement.

"You say it as if you were _there_ ," Frank said, while Alice and Lily exclaimed, "You're a Seer?"

"I thought Divination was all so much unclear wording, multiple interpretation – nothing so clear as _that_ ," Lily frowned.

"I am a Seer," I reiterated. "I saw a scene with Peter telling his master the Secret, before it happened. I wasn't really _there_ , but I saw it happening. The Inner Eye must have decided to test my heroism."

"Prophecies are weirdly worded," Lily insisted, "and they are cryptic, with multiple interpretations. Even in the realm of Divination…"

"Some of us have true Sight," I said. "Like your friend, Julia Wainwright. A true Seer. That is the reason that she won more than 85% of her bets on Quidditch matches. She was in tune with her gift and used it for admittedly mundane purposes to get lots of money. Didn't you wonder how even the implausible predictions that she made ended up coming true? It's more than just intuition. I believe Pandora Lovegood also has some Sight, as may her daughter – but it's too early to tell whether young Luna has the gift."

"And you, too, are a Seer?" she said curiously. "So when Peter revealed the Secret, it inadvertently counted as him revealing it to you, as you saw the vision? And that's how you were able to come to the house and know where we were, and where Voldemort was attacking?" I paused; that wasn't quite what had happened. Peter had never revealed the Secret directly to me, but would a vision have counted? I didn't know, because I hadn't _really_ had a vision of Peter telling Voldemort the Secret. I only had Pensieve memories.

I settled for a slightly safer answer. I shrugged. "It is not clear even to _me_ how the Inner Eye works, but through my foreknowledge, I was able to intervene in time. I am not even sure why it chose to reveal this information now, or why this particular bit of information. Perhaps it saw a future with the Potters being dead, and everything going to shit in your absence… and deciding to reveal this information to a Seer who had practiced Defense for years, to make sure the foreknowledge ended up in the hands of someone who could actually _do_ something about it."

"Well, as Seers go," she decided, "you're not that bad. I like you loads better than that crazy bat, Trelawney."

I laughed at that. "Oh, I completely understand. I like me loads better than Trelawney as well."

That was probably an understatement. I _loathed_ Sybil Trelawney, and that bloody prophecy that played such a huge role in the upending of so many lives, as well as the _ending_ of so many lives. It probably wasn't Trelawney's fault that the spirits of prophecy had chosen to possess her at that particular moment and deliver an overly cryptic statement about the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord, or that _idiots_ had thought they could translate an overly cryptic statement with multiple possible meanings into a coherent interpretation, and then act on those "interpretations,"… but I hated her nonetheless. It was hard to shake off my loathing for the Divination "Professor," especially when she had constantly predicted people's deaths in classes. No one had ever died when she had predicted the deaths of students in class. But plenty of people had died due to that thrice-be-damned prophecy about " _The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches_ …"

"I'm glad that there is someone like you on our side," she said, rising to shake my hand. I took it, and we shook. "We owe you our lives, Miss…" she paused.

I hesitated, turning to Neville's father. "I'm… not comfortable with too many people knowing my identity," I said. "I'd like to maintain a low profile."

"You stopped Voldemort from killing an intended target of his, dear," Alice Longbottom said gently. "That bridge isn't burned, so much as it is incinerated. You have a high profile now, whether you want it or not. We all do. It's the cost of standing against Voldemort so openly and brazenly."

I sighed. "That's true," I admitted. "That bridge _is_ incinerated. But I would still rather that as few people as possible should know my name. I don't want to be found easily. I don't have your skills in dueling-"

"You _fought Voldemort_ ," Frank said, amazed that I was criticizing my own dueling skills.

"Yes," I agreed. "I fought unconventionally, only being as successful as I was because I pulled a dozen tricks specifically for _ambushing_ , instead of directly fighting, an opponent. And Voldemort adapts well, if nothing else. I don't expect these tricks to work again; nothing works twice against a man like Voldemort."

"Dumbledore's tricks do," Lily said, playing Devil's Advocate.

"Most of us," I said in probably one of the larger understatements I had made in my lifetime, "are not that powerful. For the rest of us, we can't rely on pure power to resist him. _I_ can't rely on pure power to resist him. We have strategies and tactics… but Voldemort keeps adapting to them. So we must either keep inventing new strategies to keep him off-balance, or use one of the old ones – which is basically suicide. The sooner Voldemort finds me, the sooner he'll learn all my tactics, all my spells, all my last resorts. The sooner he knows my _name_ , the sooner he'll find me. Names have power, and if you have someone's name, it makes the task of tracking that individual magically one hundred times easier. I won't have that. So if I tell you my name, you have to promise _on Unbreakable Vow_ that it does _not_ leave this room. That _only_ you four, as well as anyone else to whom I, personally, choose to divulge my name voluntarily, should know it. And no one else."

Lily looked at Frank. "Do you trust her?"

The Auror looked at Harry Potter's mother, and said, "Yes. She swore Unbreakable Vows to prove that _we_ could trust _her_. She's proven to us that she can be trusted… but we haven't proven such to her. If anything, this is about as cautious as myself or Alastor would be in such circumstances. And I can't disapprove – I disapprove when people are _in_ sufficiently cautious, not when they are _overly_ so. As Alastor says… it is impossible to _err_ if you are erring on the side of caution."

Alice asked the next question. "Can Dumbledore know?"

"My terms have not changed," I said, absently noting that my jaw involuntarily clenched at the mention of Albus Dumbledore. "The offer is _only_ for you four, and no one else. Take it or leave it." Lily's green eyes shifted ever so slightly; she had noticed my reaction to Dumbledore's name.

"That's reasonable," Alice decided. "Dumbledore is trustworthy and a good man who takes care to save as many lives as he can, but it stands to reason that our interventionist here can't know that yet. Trust is not given lightly, and ought not to be handed out to people who haven't _yet_ proved themselves worthy of it. In time, it may be earned and therefore given." I held back a scoff at that statement.

"Should we tell him you exist?" Frank asked seriously. I paused, thinking about it.

"He'll learn of my existence eventually. Assuming Voldemort is still alive – and in all likelihood, he _is_. There's no way my wave of Fiendfyre managed to kill him, especially as killing him wasn't even my goal. He'll be alive, and he'll be raging at the witch who managed to deprive him of James Potter's head. And when he learns of it, the Headmaster will also learn of it. They have lots of spies in the camps of the other… most notably Severus Snape, whom both Dumbledore and Voldemort trust. There's no point in hiding my existence from him… just don't ask me to meet him," I decided. "But as for my _name_ … I stand by what I said earlier, that as few people should know my name as possible. As far as I know, you and James are the only two who are aware."

"Voldemort will come after you again, you know," Alice said seriously. "He's good at finding people, tracking them down… you may want a support organization, so you don't have to do it alone."

"Already with the recruitment pitch?" I asked in mock surprise. "Where do I audition to join the Order of the Fried Chicken?"

"How do you know what organization we're part of?" Lily said, looking at me askance.

"I'm a Seer," I replied instantly. As they scowled, I grinned. "But more seriously," I said in my best Dumbledore impression (which wasn't very good), "it is a secret, so, naturally, the whole world knows."

Frank barked with laughter. "Definitely a Hogwarts alumna, no one could have gotten our dear Headmaster down so well," he chortled.

"The audition _was_ pretty impressive," Lily conceded. "Jumping in, dueling Voldemort-"

"I didn't _duel_ Voldemort," I scoffed. "That is, in fact, why I am alive."

"Ambushing him is still impressive," she said. I inclined my head, acknowledging the compliment. "We also _do_ owe you our lives, so the least we can do is to keep your secret-"

"I refuse," I said, cutting her off, "to use the _life debts_ that the House of Potter owes me as _leverage_ to ensure that my name does not become revealed to the world. This is _your_ decision about whether or not to keep my identity under wraps. I won't make your decision for you. It should be your choice."

It was slightly uncomfortable to take this position, especially as I knew that Lily Potter could easily choose to inform Dumbledore of everything she knew about me (which, admittedly, wasn't much), especially when I could call in the life debt to make sure that information was not revealed. But I refused to run absolutely roughshod over another person's free will like that. They had to have the freedom to make their own choices.

Well, aside from the man that I had Imperiused to tell me the year and the date… I did feel guilty about that. But I was sure that it was necessary to save lives. And I didn't force him to do anything truly horrific, like murder or torture, while under the Imperius. I even commanded him to get himself psychological help after being under the spell –

My justifications sounded flimsy, even to myself. I had cast the Imperius Curse on another human being. For all I knew, he'd never be able to move without looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. It was true that I had then saved the lives of the entire Potter family… but my whole ethos was built off of the fact that you couldn't just _weigh_ the lives that had been positively impacted against the ones that you have negatively impacted. _People_ were too valuable to weigh one harmed person against three helped people and decide that you did good, by the principles of utilitarianism.

There was no escaping it: I had erred by casting the Imperius Curse on an innocent with no provocation. It had seemed necessary at the time… but even if it _had_ been necessary, that _didn't mean_ that it was not wrong.

I promised myself that this would not happen again, that I would only ever use the spell again if lives would be lost if I didn't. Again, though, that sounded flimsy. Arguably, not using the spell against the man would have cost the lives of the Potters. It still felt _wrong_ , though, and viscerally so. Even as I made the promise, I doubted it would be enough to stop me from using the spell unnecessarily, or that the terms of my promise were enough to prevent me from abusing the power I could wield by means of the Imperius Curse.

"Well said," Lily interrupted my train of thought. I turned to face her, my eyes turning to meet hers. "I _choose_ to swear the Unbreakable Vow, to make sure that your true identity does not leave this room, and no one will learn it who isn't _willingly_ told your identity by you, yourself."

I shrugged. "All right, then. Frank, will you be our Bonder?"


	4. The wrath of the DEAD

Chapter 4 – Prevention

The wrath of the DEAD

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _I shrugged. "All right, then. Frank, will you be our Bonder?"_

We had finished making the vows, and I had disclosed my real identity to Lily and Alice.

"This is only the second time I've participated in an Unbreakable Vow today," Frank said.

"Only the second," I said in a mock scandalized tone. "Why, some days I make as many as six Unbreakable Vows before breakfast."

Lily stared at me. "I got that reference," she said, "how are _you_ even _familiar_ with it? The Turpins are an old, pureblooded family."

"That doesn't mean that I know nothing about Muggles," I said. "I'm not one of those stuck-up 'superior' idiots like Lucius Malfoy." Speaking of which, I had to do something about Lucius… that would probably involve killing. Lucius was one of the more dangerous members of the Death Eater contingent, made even more dangerous by the fact that he had had enough gold to bribe his way free of any punishment at the conclusion of the First War.

"What made you decide to take the Unbreakable Vow to prove your trustworthiness?" Lily asked. "James would have taken the fact that you had saved his and my life to be ample proof of it. Why go the extra mile?"

"Frank Longbottom here," I said. "He learned paranoia from one of the best – Alastor Moody himself. James, as you say, trusted me instantly, and he _was_ , after all, personally there when I collapsed a roof on Voldemort's head."

"You collapsed a roof on Voldemort's head? How did you know that it wouldn't hit James?" Lily asked.

"I didn't," I said. "I am not a _combat_ Seer – all of my skills are from having practiced Defense for years – so I had to take the risk. A frontal attack was too risky and too likely to result in my death. So I collapsed the house."

"He could have _died_ ," she exclaimed, glaring at me. I looked away, uncomfortable under her gaze.

"He _would_ have died for sure if I didn't. It was the only option," I said truthfully, "that gave the chance of his survival of being anything more than 0%. He was wounded, down on the ground from having taken a great fall, in an enclosed space, without his _wand_ , and his opponent was _Voldemort._ I made a calculated risk to drastically change the look of the battlefield."

The redhead witch seemed agitated. "It's probably true… but what if he had _died_? And what if Harry and I had still been in the house when you'd brought it down on Voldemort's head? In your zeal to act against Voldemort, you almost _killed_ him, would have if it weren't for _pure luck-_ "

Alice sighed, interceding. "Survival of a scenario in which Voldemort is involved almost always _involves_ pure luck. Lisa is right about Dumbledore, and how he is pretty much the only one who can survive against _him_ while not having any reliance on luck. It's true that James could have easily died tonight… but the same was true of any _other_ time that we faced off against him. As it is, Miss Turpin risked her own life on the _chance_ that James would survive, and then Side-Along Apparated him out of there when it became apparent that he _did_ survive. At great personal risk, I might add. Thank you for our friends' lives, Lisa," she said, addressing me now.

I didn't speak, the words catching in my throat. It _had_ been a long time since I'd felt worthy of praise and accolades like that, _especially_ after what I had allowed to happen to Neville, her own son… 23 years in the future. Neville having volunteered for his mission, knowing the risks, knowing _full well_ what could and did happen to him… was cold comfort. There should have been a better way, but we were hard pressed for time and Voldemort was killing us off left and right… and we had arrived at the only solution that seemed to have more than a 0% chance of working.

"You lost someone," Lily said suddenly, sharply, looking right into my eyes. I looked away instantly, somehow unable even to meet the eyes of the woman whose life I'd saved. I tried to speak, in confirmation, but the words didn't come.

"You lost someone, and it's been tearing you up from the inside," she said, seemingly oblivious to my inner turmoil. "I want you to know, it isn't your fault. The blame lies on Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and only them."

"I – I know that," I finally managed to find my voice. I spoke the words, but I spoke them unconvincingly. It didn't take a master Legilimens to realize that I didn't really believe what I was saying.

"You know that, but do you _know_ it?" she said gently. "You can't go blaming yourself for the people whom you failed to save. If nothing else, wherever your friends are… they're proud of you, for taking a stand." I managed to look her in the eyes, searching for any sign of falsity… but only saw gentle compassion.

There was a lump in my throat. I brought my hand up to wipe at my eyes. Wait, when had I started crying?

In the next instant, I realized I had been drawn into a hug, by Harry's mother, the witch who had given her all, her everything, to make sure that her son survived. I was now beginning to realize that her mothering instinct extended to more than just her own children… and indeed, also to a witch who was technically older than she was.

She didn't say any words; she didn't need to. I surrendered the fight against my own tears.

(line break)

 _Knock knock knock knock._

"Oi, Longbottom!" shouted a voice at the door. "It's me, Sirius! Open up!"

"It's all right," Lily said, "he wasn't the Secret-Keeper." She seemed to have forgotten that we all already knew this fact. To be fair, only Voldemort, myself, and the Marauders had known that fact. Frank Longbottom and his wife had had to learn the information through James Potter's Patronus.

"How did you get back at Lucius Malfoy for hexing you in your second year?" Frank asked, his code question for Sirius Black.

"I slipped laxatives into his drink when he was on a date with Narcissa," Sirius answered, "and he shit himself."

"Which brand of laxatives did you steal from Zonko's Joke Shop to slip into Lucius's drink?" Frank asked.

"Steal from Zonko's Joke Shop? Are you daft? I used Muggle laxatives, which made it even funnier to see Lucius brought down so low by them."

"And how did you get it into his drink?"

"I used Kreacher the House-Elf. It may be the only time that the dratted thing ever obeyed me willingly. Abraxas Malfoy's feud with Orion and Walburga was legendary. The thing jumped at the chance to humiliate Abraxas's son," he managed to speak with both relish and disdain at the same time.

"It was amusing indeed, Sirius," Frank said agreeably, and swung open the door to let the man in.

"You know, a Death Eater could have been eavesdropping on us," Sirius said, as he walked inside. "You may accidentally let in an imposter next time, since he now knows the answer to your security question."

"That is why we switch to using different security questions," Frank said. "So is it _true_ that you were not the Secret-Keeper, and that it was Peter Pettigrew?"

Sirius's eyes clouded with rage. "I would never have betrayed Lily and James to Voldemort," he growled angrily, sounding a bit like the dog Animagus he was. "That was Peter, the blasted rat. I could be hunting him right now to make him pay, but James insisted that I should wait."

"And he was right to insist that you should," Lily said, rising from her chair. "Honestly, Sirius, are you more determined to get revenge on Peter than you are to protect James and Harry?"

The Marauder's shoulders slumped, looking shamefaced. "When I got to Godric's Hollow," he said haltingly, "I feared the worst. The house destroyed, bricks and wreckage everywhere… but there was no sign of any bodies. Either you had escaped, or your bodies had all been disintegrated by the chaos. That fucker Voldemort used _Fiendfyre_ , he wasn't fucking around-"

Lily, Frank, Alice, and I all shifted uncomfortably, knowing that I had been the one to actually use the spell.

"-but that was where I was when I received James' Patronus." He looked around. "Who is the flamboyantly dressed chap in the red hat? I know it wasn't Gilderoy Lockhart, idiot couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag-"

"For your information," I said, my voice now having returned to the land of the living, "I am not a man." I was on more comfortable ground now, the land of jokes, merriment, and amusement. I didn't want to think of the people I'd lost for any longer than necessary.

Besides, that would hinder my mission and make it more likely for me to make inaccurate mistakes. I _was_ a Ravenclaw.

"Why is there no red hat or-" Sirius started. I sighed. Lily interceded for me. "James conjured them on her so that she could more easily be identified by Auror Longbottom," she said, motioning to Frank. "Once we had verified her trustworthiness and brought her here, there was no reason to keep them around anymore."

"Aww, you have to show me how she looked!" Sirius exclaimed. "I bet it was _fabulous_ ," he said, winking. In spite of myself, I turned a little pink.

Sirius Black noticed immediately, damn him. "Aha!" he shouted. "I've still got the charm!" I scowled at being so easily flustered by the admittedly attractive Marauder… but I had more important things to think about than Sirius.

"I'm sure James can show you the memory in a Pensieve later," Lily said, hiding a smile.

I scowled again, turning to her. "Traitor!" I accused.

Sirius abruptly stiffened at the word " _traitor_ ," and I mentally slapped myself. Yeah, that was a sore subject. "Where is James, anyway?" he asked.

"He's asleep, getting some rest," Lily said. "He wasn't able to flee from the house as quickly as Harry and I were, so he took more injuries." She didn't mention that some of the injuries had been caused by _me_ in my efforts to get him out of the house as fast as possible. "You shouldn't bother him, he's severely overexerted himself. We will take him to St. Mungo's in the morning."

"And are you sure he's going to live through his injuries?" Sirius asked, looking honestly concerned.

"Yes, Alice examined him and he is in serious, but stable condition. He could do with some rest, so no more of your usual antics for the time being," Lily said sternly, looking at Sirius.

The Marauder gulped. "Um, yes. I'll do whatever you say."

"Because he's too terrified to do otherwise," Frank laughed.

"Sensible man," I agreed. Sirius turned, looking at me.

"So if I understand Prongs' Patronus correctly," he said, "James owes you his life because you heroically fought Voldemort on his behalf."

"That's correct," I agreed, deciding not to go into the semantics about how I had actually ambushed him, instead of fighting him. Merlin, did this heroics thing always bring this many accolades? All I wanted to do was assassinate the entire Death Eater contingent without being interrupted.

"A debt owed by one of the Marauders is one owed by all of us," Sirius said. "We will not rest until we have paid it off."

I sighed, my face once again introducing itself to the palm of my hand. "This is not why I save people," I said exasperatedly. "I save people because I can, and they need to be saved."

"Isn't that why we all save people?" he said. "Nevertheless… I take Marauders' honor very seriously. If you ever need anything, I can help." This time, there was no hint of flirtation in his eyes. Only a serious promise and an acknowledgement of a debt of honor that he owed to the witch who had saved his best friend from certain death at the hands of Lord Voldemort.

"Thank you, Sirius. If I shall ever need anything, I will know that I can count on you," I said, unsure as to what the proper custom towards discussing life debts was. I had never been that interested in upholding pureblood culture, even though I was one. I seem to have gotten it correct, because he nodded, satisfied, and then held out his hands. We shook for a second.

As I withdrew my hand, I realized that my palms were sweaty. _Damn you, Sirius._

I was suddenly glad that I had never been interested in make-up, either, otherwise I would have looked a sorry sight to the Marauder after my admittedly cathartic crying session, with my head on Lily Potter's shoulder. I dismissed that thought impatiently.

"So," Sirius said, standing before the fireplace, "I sense there is a story involved. The story of how a brave lass took on Lord Voldemort himself, and survived."

"Lily can tell you that story," I deflected, "three times, in fact."

Black rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know that. But I have _heard_ that story. I would like to hear yours!"

"Um," I said uncomfortably, "can't you listen to Lily's story again?"

"No," said the traitorous redhead, "I'm curious too. How did you do it? Fighting him? Even ambush tactics don't work that well on the Dark Lord, so you must have had something really ingenious up your sleeve."

I turned a pleading expression upon Harry Potter's mother, but her expression did not change. "It'll be a good story, and you ought to be prouder of your own accomplishments," she said, perfectly bluntly. My eyes widened slightly. The words had struck a chord in me; I was rattled.

"I – okay," I sighed, accepting defeat. "So it starts with some animation charms to make lots of birds…"

"You took on _Lord Voldemort_ with _Avis_ and _Oppugno_?!" Lily exclaimed in shock. "How are you still alive?"

"That was my introduction," I said. "They were not meant to kill him, though it would've been bloody fantastic if they had." All of us paused to laugh at the mental image of Voldemort failing to prevent one of the birds from gouging his eyes out. "It interrupted him, forcing him to turn his attention to them to incinerate him, at _exactly_ the moment that he would have hit James Potter with the Killing Curse. Thus… he was forced to abort."

"How did you arrive at exactly the right time?" Sirius said, eyes narrowing in suspicion. "This seems a little bit too convenient."

"Unbreakable Vow," Frank said in response; Black's eyes widened in shock. "That's how we know she isn't part of one of Voldemort's plans for the _long con_."

"You _willingly swore one of those_!?" he exclaimed, looking aghast. "That's-" _horribly reckless,_ he was going to say.

"Voldemort would have come after me again," I said, defending myself, "I need to not be alone and to have people who would handily defend me in the event of that happening."

"You were a _solo operator_ when you attacked him?" he exclaimed. "That's right bloody brave of you, it is." I blushed again. _Damn it_!

"What did you do next?" he said, bouncing up on his feet like an overly excited child. I mean, I supposed he was. _This_ Sirius Black didn't spend thirteen years in Azkaban.

"The Patronus Charm," I said.

Lily's voice was flat. "What." Then… "Holy shit. So you're saying that you _attacked Voldemort_ with _Patronus Charms_ , because they can't be killed?"

"They're also staggeringly bright, if done by the right wizard," Frank said. "They could have really blinded Voldemort, if used against him. How good is your Patronus?"

" _Expecto Patronum_ ," I incanted dutifully. I could have cast it nonverbally, but I decided it was better to make it unambiguous that this was the spell that I was casting. A dazzlingly bright silver raven Patronus leapt from my stolen wand and gallivanted around the room, then leapt out of the window.

"And how many of them did you use?" Sirius asked enthusiastically, eager for more details on the story.

"Half a dozen?" I said. "I wasn't really counting."

"You can cast half a dozen in rapid succession? It's not just _anyone_ who can do something like that," he said.

"I was fueled by sheer desperation," I deadpanned. "My opponent was Voldemort and I had to go beyond what were my ordinary limits."

Black shrugged. "Fair enough. So what did he do after that?"

I paused, struggling to remember. It had all happened really fast. "I'm pretty sure he cast Fiendfyre, in my direction, to get me to back off so he could kill James in peace." The Marauder again growled at that. "So I Apparated literally right next to him, within point-blank range, and started shoving his wand arm so his aim would be off. As long as his wand arm was in my reach, he would have a much harder time defending himself from Potter. So, Voldemort had literally no choice but to dispel his own Fiendfyre. It was now more of a hindrance than a help, since neither of his enemies was in the proper direction to be killed by it. Oh, certainly, he could have reversed the Fiendfyre's direction and killed me instantly… but he couldn't have done it without killing himself too. I was too close to him."

"That is some real Gryffindor heroics," he said admiringly. "Risking being killed by Voldemort, all to interrupt his killing of James…" he paused. "Why did James mean _so much_ to you that you were willing to risk Voldemort burning the both of you to ashes in order to save him? Are you related, an ex-girlfriend, or-"

"Nope," I sighed, as my face crashed into my palm for what must have been the third time that evening. "Absolutely not. Also, I was a Ravenclaw, not a Gryffindor. Do you seriously believe that only Gryffindors can be brave?"

Sirius shifted, suddenly looking on the back foot. "Um…"

"You bought into the fucking House stereotypes," I muttered. "Right, of _course_ you did."

"I'm beginning to believe that James did not contribute to this battle," Frank said. "That seems rather uncharacteristic for someone who went toe-to-toe with him three times."

"We didn't have our wands," Lily interrupted. Frank, Alice, Sirius, and I turned to look at her.

"You didn't have your _wands_ ," Alice repeated. "Are you kidding me?"

"No," she said, fidgeting uncomfortably at everyone's attention being on her. "We were sure that Peter would keep the Secret and we were just having fun entertaining baby Harry, so we left our wands-"

The sound of palms being introduced to faces was quite loud. I looked around, before realizing that I was not the only one who had reacted this way. The three others had done likewise.

"There is a thing called constant vigilance," Sirius said seriously. "Neglecting it almost got you all killed! Even under the _Fidelius Charm_ you should have it at all times! We are in a war, and there _is_ Voldemort-"

"You were happy that we got free time for leisure and fun within the house when _you_ were the Secret-Keeper!" Lily shot back. "What were your exact words again? Oh yes, 'I'm glad that I am able to keep you safe and even allow you the safety of being in a house where you don't have to have your wand on you all the time.' Or something like that. You're only making this argument in _hindsight_ , which is easy and all, but-"

"This is Peter's fault," Frank interjected, "and Peter's fault alone. Well, and Lord Voldemort's."

"How did I not see that Peter was treasonous?" Sirius asked, agitatedly pacing around the room. "And when did he turn? How long did he have to pass information to Voldemort, how much information did he betray? How many people did he betray? How many could have been saved if I'd figured him out sooner?"

"You cannot focus on what you might have done, Sirius," Frank said firmly. "That way lies madness." I involuntarily flinched at the Auror's words. Did they apply to me also? That I shouldn't drown myself in dreams of what could have been, or what should have been, because that was madness and couldn't be changed?

But if that were true, I would never have been able to come back. I never would have been able to turn back time, undo it all, make it so that all of the murders that had occurred over the next 23 years would never happen. I could change _the_ past…

But I couldn't change _my_ past. And I still hadn't come to terms with the rolls of the dead, the lost lives in _my_ past. That, possibly, I could not change. If I ensured that all of them lived… the memories of their deaths would still be in _my_ past.

It may have been advisable for me, also, to focus too much on what I _might_ have done. What I had was the future. My past, but also my future. That I could cha – ah, fuck time travel. I didn't have that great a grasp on keeping the tenses straight as a time-traveler.

"So James foolishly didn't have his wand," Frank said, "which means he should have died instantly if he had been alone. What happened after that? You said… you had forced him to dispel his own Fiendfyre by Apparating literally on top of him-"

"Not quite, but my position did overlap with his," I said, shuddering as I remembered that my destination had literally been right under the Dark Lord's armpit. "He dispelled it quickly enough, but my Patronuses were still attacking him. And then a great big stag charged out of the house, intent on goring Voldemort while I still held him-"

"Oh my," Lily said, crying tears of laughter. "You mean he was on the back foot and vulnerable because of _Muggle tactics_?"

"This was basically the plan. A hastily cobbled together plan that seemed to have almost no chance of succeeding, but-" I shrugged.

"It did?" Sirius asked. "I would love to see that in a Pensieve memory! The great Voldemort being physically manhandled."

"You and me both, Sirius," Alice added, who was also grinning like a lunatic at the mental image.

"Don't forget about me," her husband said in mock indignation.

"It didn't work," I sighed, dashing their hopes. "Voldemort blasted me off of him, and used an area-wide Banisher to fling James back into the house. Luckily… I had a second wand, so I could defend myself even after that. Still, he dealt with my swarm of hailstones disappointingly easily. His main target, though, was probably the wandless Potter, as he didn't turn to view the effects of his fireball, instead heading into the house. I don't know where the stag landed when Voldemort Banished him back, but it must have been painful. He would have been a sitting duck for whatever Voldemort planned to do to him next."

"Sitting duck?" inquired Alice. I sighed, "Muggle expression, meaning-"

"I get the meaning," she said. "I do, after all, know how to use context."

"So James is the stag," Frank said. "You know, he'll have to pay the Animagus registration fee and the illegal Animagus fine, so-"

"We could keep that secret," Lily insisted. "The more people who know about his Animagus form, the less of a surprise it would be. Being a stag gave him advantages he wouldn't have had as a human, it may have even saved his life-"

"If Voldemort knows that he is a stag, and he in all probability does," I countered, "then it is already known. The Death Eaters already know about it." She slapped her forehead. "How did I miss the obvious?"

"So how did you continue to interrupt Voldemort? Did you Apparate right on top of him again?" Sirius asked, enjoying the tale of a frustrated Voldemort far too much. Had he forgotten that his best friend had nearly died in this encounter?

"I spoke the words for the Killing Curse," I said dramatically. Sweet Merlin, I hadn't wanted to tell this story at first, and now I was having altogether way too much fun with it.

"You cast the Killing Curse at Voldemort," Sirius repeated, disbelief covering his tone.

"Hey, if anyone deserves it, he does," I shrugged. "Should I have gone easy on him?"

"Dark magic is addicting," Sirius said, unknowingly echoing Frank Longbottom's earlier lecture on the statement. "At some point, the magic and spells end up controlling you and not the other way around; it can lead to destruction of the-"

"For heaven's sake, Sirius!" I said exasperatedly. "I _didn't cast it_."

"What?" he said, looking confused, his face a perfect picture of incomprehension.

"I spoke the incantation, but didn't actually cast," I said. "I bluffed Voldemort into believing I was attacking him from behind with something that would have actually hurt him."

"Killed him, more like," Sirius said. His face was now dawning with realization. "So you saved Prongs by _pranking_ the worst Dark Lord in history? My hero!" I flushed slightly pink at that ( _again_ ), but I also felt irritation – did this man see _everything_ in terms of _pranking_? What would it take to turn Sirius Black into a mature and responsible adult?

"That plan is utterly insane," Lily said dryly. "Who told you to do that, the Inner Eye? I feel like that's the only possible way for such an absurd strategy to have any success against him. A bluff Killing Curse? How did you know he'd even fall for it?"

"I guessed," I deadpanned. She just stared at me. "There is a very good reason I cast a bluff Killing Curse," I added, "and you can't argue with the results."

"Did you drink Felix Felicis with all your meals?" she asked.

"No," I said shortly. I _had_ drunk Felix before activating my time spell, but I had needed all the luck I could get then. Maybe some of the Felix had helped against Voldemort… because my survival of tonight, and rescuing James Potter from Voldemort when they were both in a house that I _couldn't even see_ , were things that still astounded me as well.

"So what were the results?" Frank asked; he, too, had been drawn in by my admittedly absurd, but true tale of defiance against the Dark Lord.

"He was distracted," I answered. "On some level, he must have known the curse was a fake, but his body was already reacting. An instant reflex, to hearing those words shouted by someone who wasn't in his line of sight."

"Ah," he said. "And then James Potter the stag gored him?"

"I know he crashed into him," I said. I had no idea of the extent of the injuries that James Potter had managed to inflict on Voldemort while inside the house. "And that it injured the Dark Lord, giving him broken bones. Still, Voldemort still had his _wand_ and I had to assume he'd turn the tables and kill the stag at any moment."

Lily shifted uncomfortably, uneasy with how I talked so scientifically and logically about the prospect of her husband being killed.

"I don't remember all of the means I employed to interrupt him, or even what order I was doing them. I was just acting with the intent of preventing Voldemort from gaining the upper hand. Let me see… I used another, fake Killing Curse. Have you heard of ' _Faux Kedavra_?'"

"I understand what it's supposed to do," said Frank. "Are you telling me your bluff worked _again_?"

"I screamed the last word very loudly," I said. "His reaction to being threatened with the spell is pretty much automatic. It's like muscle memory, for duelers and whomever else." I was glad to have studied at least a little bit of Muggle psychology, otherwise I wouldn't have been _quite_ so confident in the power of my bluffs.

"So there I was, interrupting him, and Potter was crashing into him, again and again… that probably rattled Voldemort most of all. He lifted Potter up by magic and crashed him into the ceiling, and then he fell down. He must have been _really_ angry, because he wasn't thinking clearly and could have used a more permanent solution… like the Killing Curse." Lily looked decidedly pale at that last part of my statement.

"And then I collapsed the house on top of both of them," I finished.

Sirius paused. "What."

"I collapsed the whole house on top of both of them, creating a distraction. Because Voldemort was defending himself from the falling bricks, I was able to pull an alive James Potter out of the wreckage and Apparate him out."

"What about the Fiendfyre?" he demanded. "It couldn't have been Voldemort's, you told me that he'd had to dispel his own!"

"He would have killed us for sure," I said, my hackles rising. "We'd already had to dodge the bricks when he took control of them by magic and started sending them at us. I had only _one_ thing that could have been powerful enough to buy me any time at all in a direct confrontation. And that was Fiendfyre."

"No fake Killing Curse?" he asked.

"Sirius," I sighed – did he _really_ think that the "art of pranking" would work forever? "Dark Wizards have tried to kill Voldemort too. They use the Killing Curse – the _real_ one _–_ and other Unforgivables. Yet they didn't manage to kill him, and indeed, few of them who made the attempt ever managed to live to tell the tale. I couldn't have taken him. There was, in fact, only one spell powerful enough to delay him for _more_ than precisely zero seconds. And that was Fiendfyre."

"You've got to understand," Black said, "when I arrived at the house and saw most of it had been burned to smithereens… I thought they were all dead." His voice cracked a little. I felt a little bit bad for his plight, but it was over now. And I didn't regret demolishing the house and casting the Fiendfyre… I had done it to save lives, and I had cost none in the process. That was good.

It would have been better if I'd cost _Voldemort_ his body (since I could never have been able to cost him his life. Fucker just wouldn't _die_ ), but that was supremely unlikely. Voldemort wouldn't be defeated by such things like a wave of Fiendfyre that was only intended to be a distraction anyway, or collapsing flaming bricks. None of the more powerful spells I had in my arsenal had any chance of putting him down even temporarily.

He sighed. "That makes sense, I guess." I didn't enjoy the drastic measures I'd taken, either… but I didn't regret them. I would do it again if I had to – though I hoped that I didn't. "So what do we do about Peter?"

"We wait it out," Lily and I said at the same time.

"The _hell_ we will-" the Marauder started angrily.

"The Death Eaters want Peter's head, too," I said. "They have no idea how or why a random witch was able to interfere with their master's attempt on the lives of the Potters. And since no one but Voldemort or the Death Eaters were even aware that the attack was happening, or what time it was happening… they suspect treason. And who, but Peter, displaying lingering loyalty to his old school friends?"

"Is that what happened?" Sirius asked intently.

"No," I said. "I am a Seer. They didn't see _that_ coming." _And, God willing, they won't see my assassinations of them all coming either._

"I thought prophecies were just all so much nonsense," he exclaimed in astonishment. "So Seers really exist?"

"You aren't the first one to have that question tonight," I grinned.

(line break)

(Edit: Scene added July 12, 2017)  
(Edit July 13, 2017: I listed "Wilson" twice on the list of the assassinated in the initial posting of this scene. Fixed and replaced with Yaxley.)

I sat alone in the room, after everyone else had departed to get sleep. Sirius decided to stay in one of the spare bedrooms. I said "Sirius decided," but it was more like, Lily threatened him into staying, since he had _better_ not do something stupid and chase after Peter while he was gone. Chances are, he would do something stupid like get himself arrested for betraying the Secret... since the Ministry and the Order did not yet know that he wasn't the Secret-Keeper.

Sirius had been extremely reluctant, but Lily then told him that if he didn't acquiesce, she would tell James that he made her cry. The normally courageous man gulped in absolute terror and he conceded defeat.

I was thinking about my decision to intervene against Voldemort and the Death Eater faction early. I could have played the utilitarian and allowed Lily, James, and Voldemort to all die this Halloween night. Of course, Voldemort's death wouldn't have been permanent, but it would have rendered him thoroughly unable to save his Death Eaters from my assassinations of them. I knew they'd fall prey to the assassination tactics I had planned… because they had the first time around. The utilitarian plan held less risk. But my own actions had rendered the utilitarian plan unusable. I didn't regret deviating from it, but it would make my plan of assassinating the entire Death Eater contingent a harder task.

I was a solo operator when I had attacked Voldemort, but that position was becoming untenable. My mission was to run a one-man crusade against Lord Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and Albus Dumbledore. It was entirely possible that I would die before I finished. I was all too aware of mortality. I needed people to help me, and defend me – even if they did not know my true objectives, I still needed allies and defenders. My intervention against Lord Voldemort at Godric's Hollow seemed to have earned me the trust of the Potter family and the Longbottom family. If I came under attack, I was reasonably confident that they would defend me.

This greatly increased my chances of survival. Defending myself with four allies was way easier than defending myself, alone, with no one helping me. I didn't _think_ I would get ambushed any time soon, but lots of people who didn't think that they would get ambushed ended up getting ambushed.

And in a straight fight, I was terrible. My specialty during the Second Voldemort War had been assassinations. I was the one who had assassinated Fenrir Greyback. I had assassinated Snape, Dolohov, Wilson, Amycus Carrow, Mulciber, Phillips, and Yaxley. I had been the one to curse Avery to within an inch of his life. In a straight fight, I was terrible, but there had still been the option of assassinations. Always the option of assassinations. I'd become _very_ good at it. I had not been the only member of the Death Eater Assassination Department – Morag MacDougal, Hannah Abbott, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood, William Weasley, Seamus Finnegan, and Roger Davies had also been members – but I was probably the most proficient at it (after Hermione herself).

Yes, the acronym for that is "DEAD." The man who invented the name of the team had laughed his head off for thirty minutes before someone finally got fed up enough with him to hex him with the Silencing Charm. This did not stop him from laughing. Between the eight of us, we killed a good half of the Death Eater contingent by way of assassinations. They learned to fear us. Towards the end, the Death Eaters actually stopped receiving new recruits for several months because they were too terrified of falling to the DEAD. It got so bad for them that Voldemort himself stepped in and tried to deal with DEAD attacks, but we never attacked when he was present, and he couldn't be everywhere at once. If he was personally guarding one Death Eater stronghold from attack, we would be attacking another one. And if he tried to personally show up to interrupt one of our attacks, we always escaped before he arrived. It must have drove him insane. We knew we couldn't assassinate _him_ , and even if we did, he'd come back from the dead enough times at that point to know that that wouldn't hurt him or the Death Eater cause in the long run. But if all of his followers kept dying left and right and it was something that he wasn't able to either protect them or even kill the attackers after the fact… it was no wonder that the Death Eaters' new recruits eventually dwindled down to zero.

It had worked well, but it was actually an absurdly risky strategy. One, Voldemort could absolutely not be in the location that we were attacking. That was _hard_ to ensure, because the Dark Lord was harder to track than most. Two, we had to make sure that Voldemort wouldn't show up in the middle of one of our assassination missions and start slaughtering us. Sometimes we escaped barely a step ahead of him, and sometimes with less than five seconds' warning. Three, we had to make sure that Voldemort couldn't find _us_ and give the assassination team a bit of their own medicine. Killing the Death Eaters was the easy part, but avoiding the nigh-unkillable Voldemort was _really really hard._ If it weren't for the prodigious skill and uncanny predictions of William Weasley and Luna Lovegood, our assassination squad should have all died, by total party kill, thirteen times over. If it were just me, alone, carrying out the assassinations of the whole Death Eater contingent… well, I didn't think I'd get to my third mission before Voldemort intercepted me once. And once would be enough.

I wasn't alone, however. I had people who could help me. The Potters and the Longbottoms. But would they approve? Frank and Alice Longbottom were officers of the law, after all, and were not likely to approve of extrajudicial execution. And even if I ignored that, getting them on standby to alert me instantly if Voldemort showed up when I was scouting a Death Eater home seemed to place their lives unnecessarily at risk. I didn't think I could live with myself if my decision to involve any of them intimately in the DEAD v. 2.0 ended up getting them killed. After the effort I'd put into saving them… they'd _better_ fucking live.

I sighed. I was sure I'd made the right moral decision by eschewing utilitarianism and going ahead with saving the lives that I could. But it seemed to have placed me in the unenviable predicament of having _no idea_ how to properly assassinate all of the Death Eaters.

An idea came to me, ever so clear that I wondered how I could have missed the possibility before.

 _Bartemius Crouch, Senior._ I really didn't like the man; he had morally failed when it mattered the most, with his son. Why he had acceded to his dying wife's request to break his son out of Azkaban, I would never know. However, Crouch Sr. had been one of the fiercest voices of the anti-Voldemort factions in the First Voldemort War, and his measures had often been credited with weakening the Death Eater armies and resisting them well. If nothing else, he wasn't inclined to go easy on Death Eaters, and believed that the more of them who were killed or in Azkaban, the better. He was a genuine enemy of Voldemort and the Death Eaters… and the most likely to greenlight an assassination program to take out all the Death Eaters in one fell swoop.

The only problem with this idea was his Death Eater son. Could I reveal that his son was a Death Eater to him, and expect him to react well? Probably not. Could I trust him not to spring his son from Azkaban on the dying request of his wife? Probably not. That decision of Barty's had never made sense to me. He had to have known that his son would take any opportunity that he had to escape – and escape he did. It was nothing short of sheer miracle that no one died when Bartemius Crouch Junior escaped his father and went to Hogwarts, masquerading as a professor. No, revealing that his son was a Death Eater and then letting him live was not an option. Crouch Jr. was an utterly unrepentant fanatically loyal murderer, and the only way to nullify his threat was to kill him.

I wasn't sold on this idea, either. But since my actions in saving the Potters had prevented Voldemort from being discorporated… assassinating all of the Death Eaters by myself didn't seem like something I could pull off. And did I want to drag Sirius, the Potters, and the Longbottoms into this? They had families that they needed to protect, priorities more important to them than killing Death Eaters.

I sighed. There must be a method better than being hired as an assassin for Barty Crouch Sr, and having a whole Hit Wizard team on my side. It was an interesting and maybe even effective possibility… but I'd become far more high-profile than I desired. It was true that I couldn't have a low profile, being on Voldemort's shit list – but less than ten people in the whole world even knew my _name_. Less than ten people in the whole world even knew that it was _me_ who intervened against Voldemort that night. I didn't want to give up the security of anonymity, making me less safe. There had to be a method that worked even better, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of one at the moment.

Maybe a good night's sleep would give me some ideas.


	5. Arguments, Friendship, and Recrimination

Chapter 5 – Prevention

Arguments, Friendship, and Recriminations (Revision Jul. 13, 2017)

(This is the new chapter. I was not satisfied with the old chapter (which looked too much like an infodump) and replaced it entirely. Lisa will not reveal everything that happened in her timeline in one fell swoop. I may soon start another fic that looks into the events of Lisa's past and examines the divergence of her timeline, from JKR's canon.)

(line break)

"I am gratified to see that you are alive and well, James," the old Headmaster said as he looked at the injured Marauder in the St. Mungo's hospital bed. "I'd heard you were injured and were recovering here, and, well, I came as fast as I could."

Lily had decided to bring James Potter to St. Mungo's after all, since his injuries were beyond Alice's ability to fully fix. He had, after all, been caught right in the wreckage of a collapsed house, and he had also been fighting Voldemort, who had crashed James into the ceiling and let him crash back to the ground painfully, by the force of gravity.

"Thank you, Albie – can I call you Albie?" James asked cheekily. The Headmaster smiled indulgently. "Of course." The Hogwarts Headmaster took a seat beside the bed.

"I heard you were attacked by Voldemort," Dumbledore said, without preamble. "You fought and drove him off again – that shows great courage and skill. Not just anyone can do that. I am sorry that you lost your house, though."

"I had help," the Marauder answered, looking kind of embarrassed.

"Ah, Lily," the Headmaster nodded. "The power of your love for each other-"

"It wasn't me," Lily put in. "An unknown intervened, helping save James from Voldemort. If not for her intervention, he would have certainly died last night."

Dumbledore frowned, looking confused for a change. "But how did she intervene if the house was under Fidelius? She should not even have been able to see what was happening."

Lily frowned. James answered, "She says that she is a Seer, and had a vision of Peter revealing the Secret to Voldemort."

"Peter?" Dumbledore asked. "I thought you had made Sirius the Secret-Keeper. I added his name to the official Ministry WANTED list because the only way for Voldemort to have been able to find you was for him to have betrayed you all."

"We told people that Sirius was the Secret-Keeper, but we switched and made Peter the Secret-Keeper at the last moment. It was brilliant, a bluff. No one would have suspected it. Only, Peter revealed the Secret to Voldemort," James answered. "I don't know if he did it under duress or willingly, but he revealed the Secret. So we almost died." He sounded as if he really, really hoped that Peter had been forced to reveal the Secret. He _really_ didn't want to consider the ramifications of a lifelong friend having willingly betrayed him to Voldemort.

"It was a really bad idea," he said. "But you've heard it from me: Peter was the Secret-Keeper and not Sirius, and he is the one who betrayed us. You will have to take Peter off – I mean, you will have to take _Sirius_ off of the Ministry WANTED list, and replace him with Peter."

"Peter was the Secret-Keeper? You're sure?" Dumbledore questioned.

"Of course I'm sure," James said, finally growing impatient, "I am the one who cast the bloody spell! I couldn't forget or lie about something like that."

Dumbledore looked at James for a long moment. After deciding that James must have been telling the truth, he nodded. "Very well. Consider it done."

There was silence for a while, and then the Headmaster spoke again. "So, a Seer? A true Seer?"

"That's what she said," James said, "and explains how she knew that the attack was happening, and even how she knew where the house was. If she saw Peter revealing the Secret to Voldemort in a Seer vision, that would technically count as the Secret-Keeper telling _her_. We didn't have our wands on us when Voldemort came to the house, so we were… pretty unprepared. I told Lily to take Harry and run for it, while I held him off. But realistically, I couldn't have held him off for more than two seconds, because I didn't have a wand. And that is when the Seer showed up, and interrupted him."

"A Seer fought Voldemort?" Dumbledore asked intently. "True Sight? How interesting..." he said. "Do you know other things about her, like combat capability, where is she from, why she did this, why we haven't seen her sooner, who does she work for? The Order is often short on people and we could use a new recruit. One who is willing to stand against Voldemort, and has the gift of seeing the future would be an invaluable asset."

"Well," James began, "she seems to primarily be an ambusher, but she's very brave, daring, and unconventional. You haven't seen mad bravery until you've seen someone Apparate right next to Voldemort and physically manhandle him when he'd just cast Fiendfyre-"

"James," Lily coughed, "surely you can just provide Professor Dumbledore with your Pensieve memory of the event. It would be faster and, also, you need to conserve your voice." Also, she didn't want to hear James talk too much about the amazing bravery and feats of another woman, even if they did all owe her their lives.

James acquiesced, drawing out a silver strand of memory and placing it into a vial that the Headmaster had conjured.

"Thank you for sharing this information with me, James," the Headmaster said. "Every little bit counts and is invaluable to the war effort."

"You're welcome, Albie," Potter said. Dumbledore sighed.

"Is there anything else you know?" the old man asked. "Like her name?"

Lily twitched. "We can't tell you that. She wishes to remain anonymous, and we will respect that. She also knows that Voldemort will have a target on her head for interfering, and has decided that the fewer people who know, the better. Yes, that includes you. She doesn't know you yet, so she has decided that she can't yet afford to trust you. Actually, she seems not to like you for some reason. I'm not sure why."

"Hmm," Dumbledore frowned, "give her time. Alastor Moody didn't trust or like me at first, but he came around. I'm not interested in forcing someone to trust me, it defies the purpose of trust."

"I'm glad that you also see it that way," the redheaded witch replied. "She claims to be a Hogwarts alumna who had been sorted into Ravenclaw. But she doesn't like the House system very much because she believes it promotes harmful stereotypes and encourages incomplete and inaccurate views of the world. Barty Crouch Junior and my husband are both Gryffindors, but very different people. Yet we tend to categorize almost everyone who was sorted into Gryffindor as basically being the same… and the same with the other houses. The thing I find most unusual is that she's a member of an old pureblood house, arguing that traditions ought to be stopped if they are harmful. To back this up, she cited Muggle-baiting and blasting disgraced family members off of the tapestry as harmful traditions. So, she may be part of a family that _really_ adheres to the old traditions."

"Old traditions?" James asked blankly. Lily rolled her eyes. "Right, I forgot that you weren't very interested in remembering or upholding pureblood traditions. That's why I had to learn about most of the old traditions on my own time. I wouldn't even have known that a Life Debt had magical implications."

"Yes," the Marauder grinned, "but _something_ good came out of me ignoring the pureblood traditions. You got to marry me after all, so it isn't all negative."

"Um," Lily said articulately, unable to stop herself from blushing a little. "Er, where were we?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation back to its original topic.

"A family that really adheres to the old traditions," Dumbledore said. "I'm beginning to see what you mean, however. The pureblood families of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were non-interventionist, and hands off with Muggles. They simply believed that wizards should not interact with Muggles and acted to minimize any possible interactions. Thus, they would have disapproved of things like Muggle-baiting. They also believed that family was family, no matter what, so disowning was rare. But the Wizarding World changed over time, and sadly – a great moral failing of the Wizarding World – more and more people fell into the poison dogma that was pureblood supremacy. And so a tradition was started of disowning people who fraternized with non-purebloods too much. That would explain our Seer's disgust towards 'harmful traditions.' Hmm. As for the Sorting, it _is_ an interesting argument, and one not without merit. I sometimes think we Sort too soon…"

"Peter?" Lily suggested. "I'm not sure how he got sorted into Gryffindor now." James winced, but said nothing.

"That's one example, yes," the Headmaster agreed.

"But you were thinking of another one," Lily said perceptively.

"Yes," the Headmaster agreed again.

"Andromeda Tonks, maybe," James said. "Well, it was nice catching up with you, Headmaster. But I need my rest and to recover."

The Headmaster's eyebrows shot up, and then his eyes turned to James, to Lily, and then to James again.

"Lily kept reminding me of that," James grinned sheepishly. "That I needed to avoid overexerting myself too much, so I could heal faster."

"Ah," Dumbledore looked chagrined. "Your soul and spirit seemed so energetic and unexhausted, I forgot about the _body_. Lily, would you be bothered if we continued this conversation outside? James need not participate."

(line break)

"Any other things you can tell me?" the Headmaster asked as they walked through the hallway.

"She's lost someone, someone very close to her. Maybe more than one person," Lily informed him. "I think that's half the reason that she started intervening against attacks. She doesn't want anyone else to lose their… family? Friends? Whatever the case… she doesn't want it to happen to anybody else. And now, she's discovered that it _is_ in her power to save people. So she does."

"Try to see if she is interested in joining the Order," Dumbledore said. "I can appreciate someone of conviction, who values saving as many lives as possible. And in these troubled times, we need all the help we can get to resist Lord Voldemort and his followers." He paused. "You said she's a Seer, too, and is skilled enough in magic that she can take on Voldemort in a fight. This may be exactly what we need to turn the tide against Lord Voldemort." He smiled, but Lily was good at reading people. She, like Lisa, had studied Muggle psychology, and knew enough about people to understand the unspoken and the implied.

And as the redheaded witch examined Dumbledore's smile, she understood that while Dumbledore was amazed that there was a Seer, who valued saving people, and was capable of taking on Voldemort himself… he held absolutely no hope that she might be able to turn the tide against Voldemort. To Dumbledore, the goal of stopping Voldemort… seemed as unattainable as ever. Even with an ingenious, inventive, powerful Seer like her on his side.

Lily liked to believe that she was astute at knowing things… and she did know things. She didn't have her husband's or Sirius's relentless optimism, or Dumbledore's calm in the face of every disaster. She knew that things would be worse without the Order of the Phoenix, and that they were doing good work, and that Dumbledore was a powerful wizard that even _Voldemort_ feared. But she also knew that they were losing this war, and losing it hard. Death Eaters were committing murder after murder; often Order members were too late to stop them. Often, on occasions when they _weren't_ too late, they were still too outnumbered to have any possibility of overcoming the Death Eaters and saving the innocents. There were only a handful of attacks that didn't end in clear Death Eater victory. They were too good at ambushing, raiding, and just plain old killing.

The Order saved lives when they could, and hundreds of people still had their lives due to the _Order's_ actions when they had managed to _successfully_ interrupt Death Eater attacks. But the Death Eaters killed more than the Order could manage to save, and they were also always a step ahead of the Order and the Ministry. The Seer was an unexpected development _against_ the Death Eaters, managing to surprise Voldemort himself. She, James, and Harry still had their lives because of her. Yet Lily had studied the general trend of the war, and was beginning to become doubtful that it would ever end, or that it would end in anything except for Voldemort's victory. She knew that Dumbledore was more optimistic, that he was always trying to find _something_ positive about the whole situation, even as it got worse and worse.

To know that Dumbledore, the perpetual optimist, was _still_ doubtful that Voldemort could be stopped, even with this new development… that was shocking, unsettling, and frightening. If even _Dumbledore_ didn't believe that they had any way of stopping Voldemort and his campaign of murder…

How long could they expect to survive? She and James and Harry had escaped last night from his attempt. He'd made four attempts already; he was bound to make more. How long before their luck ran out, and one of them succeeded? She shivered involuntarily at the thought.

"Is there something wrong, Lily?" Dumbledore's voice cut through her thoughts.

"No," she said, "nothing."

"One last thing before I depart," the Headmaster said. "I believe that Voldemort will target you, James, and Harry again."

"No shit," she muttered. Dumbledore chuckled. Realizing that she had been heard, she clapped a hand to her mouth, slightly mortified.

"Well, as you say, it is not that difficult to extrapolate from the earlier patterns of attacks," Albus said. "You may need to go into hiding again, using the Fidelius. I am prepared to offer my services as the Secret-Keeper-"

"I thank you for the offer to be our Secret-Keeper, Professor Dumbledore," Lily began, "but we are going to make James the Secret-Keeper this time. We're following Frank's lead here in this matter, having someone who lives in the house being the one to shield the secret. I hope you aren't offended, we aren't snubbing you-"

"It is a sensible decision," the Headmaster agreed. "One last question: is Harry safe, wherever he is? I know that as attentive parents, you wouldn't let harm come to him, but I notice you did not bring him on your visit to St. Mungo's."

"Harry is safe, thank you for asking," she replied. "The Longbottoms are watching over him at the moment. I hope Harry and Neville will become fast friends in the future."

(line break)

"So I see that Dumbledore knows quite a bit about me now," I said neutrally. "Did you have to tell him that much?"

"I think so," the red-haired witch replied. "You said you were a solo operator, meaning you basically had planned to take on Voldemort and his Death Eaters… all on _your own_. What would you have done if James hadn't decided to practically adopt you? He's determined to have your back, no matter what, now. He doesn't pay attention to many of the pureblood traditions, but matters of honor are something he takes seriously. Would you have continued to go at it solo? You could get _killed_ doing that. I told him because I think you could stand to benefit greatly from having more people helping you."

"I…" I hesitated. I didn't quite have a good response for that. "Um, to be fair, I soon realized that I couldn't do it alone and swore Unbreakable Vows to ensure that you knew I could be trusted. I did that because I realized I couldn't survive very long alone, especially if Voldemort came after me again. I would need allies, a support network, something to make sure that I wouldn't die instantly if Voldemort showed up to make an attempt on my life, because he'd succeed if I was alone-" Lily raised a hand.

" _Allies_?" she asked. "A _support network_? Is this what you view us as? Is this because you're afraid to become close to someone, to attach too much of an emotional connection to them, after you lost your friends?"

"I…" I swallowed.

"Lisa, if you wanted us to have your back," she said, "you could have just _asked_. And I don't think that you should eschew basic emotional connections so it won't hurt as much if we die. As 'allies' or as a 'support network' is a technically accurate, but not very good way of viewing people. I consider you to be a _friend_ , one that I'd fight side-by-side and back-to-back with. I know you consider yourself to be alone in the world, that you lost someone. Maybe you even lost everyone. I don't know.

"But we can be your _new_ family, your _new_ friends. You might not want to see it as such, but…" she paused. "I'm basically adopting you," she said, as bluntly and firmly as possible, in a tone that brooked no argument.

"What?" I asked.

"You _are_ one of our friends, you are part of the family. You risked your _all_ to protect us, you risked your life to make sure that we survived last night. You're a good person, one who believes in protecting and saving people. And you aren't the only person who believes that. I look at you, and I see a girl who's hurting, from the people she lost. I see a girl who's afraid of forming more emotional connections, because she's afraid of losing them to death again. I see someone who, despite all the adversity and loss, is still fundamentally a good person who will do everything in her power to help people for as long as she can. You helped save our lives, you helped us beyond measure. Please," Lily implored, "let _us_ help _you_. You're our friend, you became so the moment that you saved our lives in Godric's Hollow. If you need us to, we'll help you in an instant, and we'll have your back until the very end. Because that's what friends do."

I was not prepared for this. I didn't expect this. "I – I need to think about this," I blurted. "I'll have an answer, but just not right now-"

"I understand," she said, "just remember. There are always people who'll help, who'll have your back, no matter what. Unless you become a serial killer."

I coughed, sending the water I was drinking spluttering everywhere. "Gosh," I said, "what if I kill Death Eaters?"

The redhead quirked an eyebrow. "Well…," she said, "that's probably fine. Often it's the only way to stop them from killing. If you kill Death Eaters in the defense of their would-be victims, it's the best and often only good option to take in that situation. And if you are in that situation… I'll have your back. You don't have to face everything alone, Lisa. You helped us, and like it or not, we are here to help you."

"I – thank you," I said, feeling slightly overwhelmed. I wasn't fully able to express just how grateful I was to Lily with words, so I hugged her instead.

I wasn't crying this time.

(line break)

"Good news, Sirius," Frank Longbottom said, "your name has been taken off of the Ministry WANTED list, and replaced with Peter Pettigrew's."

"Good," Sirius said. "Bastard deserves to be hunted for the rest of his life. Actually, scratch that. He deserves to be _dead-_ "

"Sirius," Lily said in a warning tone. "There are babies in this room, and they don't need to hear your revenge fantasies."

"They'll become reality as soon as I catch him," the Marauder replied.

"I mean, I doubt he'll survive for very long," I put in my two Knuts. "The Ministry, the Order, and the Death Eaters are all after him. Also…" a thought occurred to me. "Did you tell them that he is an illegal rat Animagus?"

"How did you know that?" Sirius demanded. I stared at him. "Oh, right," he said, slapping himself. "Seer. You know, that part is _still_ unbelievable-"

"Believe it," I said. "It's been my life for the past seven years."

Sirius Black started giggling, a truly most horrific and disturbing sound.

"Should I be worried?" I asked, looking at Lily.

"No, this is about par for the course for him," she said. "He's completely insane, though you could hardly ask for a more loyal friend."

"Okay," I said skeptically. "But didn't he try to feed Severus Snape to Remus Lupin, the werewolf?"

"Um," Lily said, looking uncomfortable. "I thought that Severus had gone down to the Shrieking Shack to explore on his own, and almost run into Remus, and had to be rescued-"

"Snape claimed that what happened was that Sirius had dared him to explore the Shrieking Shack, and he did, and therefore Sirius is responsible for his near-brush with death. At least, that was how I remember it. I don't know. My Seer ability hadn't kicked in yet, so I cannot ascertain whether what Snape said was true…" I spread my hands.

"Severus is responsible for his own choices," Lily said, her tone growing slightly frosty. "Sirius did not force him to go down into the Shrieking Shack to investigate Remus's lycanthropy… Severus chose that himself. And he was extremely ungrateful when James saved him from his own stupidity."

"I guess," I said, shrugging. "But that could have easily ended badly. What if Remus had eaten Snape? He would have been executed the very next day, for killing on the full moon. Sirius' actions _did_ lead to that becoming a possibility, how had he not considered that? His actions almost led to the death of Remus. And he was totally unrepentant for that. Hardly a stellar example of how he _valued friendship_." Sirius flinched back, almost as if from a physical blow. Had this really not been pointed out to him before?

"We may have to investigate this more closely, Sirius," Frank Longbottom said seriously. "A man this careless on the Auror corps may be a problem."

I'd expected Sirius to become angry, belligerent even. That fit from what I had known of the man. But instead, his shoulders slumped. "I understand," he said, somewhat distantly. "Merlin, I can't believe… no wonder Remus disappeared."

"We know that Peter was the traitor now," Lily said, "but before, we'd suspected Remus, because he was a werewolf and Voldemort liked to recruit werewolves… we basically displayed the prejudice that we thought we were _above_. We made assumptions, based on – oh, Merlin," she whispered, looking quite ashamed. "He was still completely loyal, and we pushed him away in our stupidity. Where is he now?" she asked, looking quite distraught.

I was reeling slightly from the revelations. I hadn't known any of this before. The Order – specifically the Potters and Sirius – had believed that Remus Lupin was a Death Eater spy, on account of him being a werewolf? And Sirius, believing himself a good and loyal friend, had _really not realized_ that what he thought was a funny schoolyard prank had almost resulted in Remus's execution, and was therefore completely unapologetic and nonunderstanding about Remus's anger towards him for that incident?

No wonder the Remus Lupin I'd met had been so badly unhinged.

"You need to apologize to him." It was a while before I realized that I was the one who had spoken. "Severus Snape is among one of the worst of the worst, now," I began. I knew that fact better than most, and I _had_ been the one to assassinate him. "But your own actions haven't been very exemplary, Sirius. The fact that you're only realizing that you were in the wrong _now_ is another scorching indictment of your character. You need to find Remus Lupin, Sirius. You need to find him, apologize to him, and beg on your bloody knees for his forgiveness, both for almost getting him killed by the Ministry's werewolf laws and your stupid asinine 'prank,' and for suspecting him to be a Death Eater spy just because he was a werewolf. And if he decides to have nothing to do with you ever again, accept that the blame for that falls on you. You've been a piss-poor real friend and he has every right to terminate your friendship forever."

Sirius Black's mouth opened and closed, but no sound was coming out.

"I think this also applies to me," Lily said, ashamed. "I also suspected him to be a traitor, a Death Eater spy, on the flimsy 'evidence' of his lycanthropy. Merlin, you must think that my talk to you about friends and having each other's backs to be so hypocritical now." I looked at her, but she was looking off to the side, avoiding my eyes.

"It was a good talk," I contradicted her, "and I needed it. The important thing is that you realized that you were wrong _now_ , and that's good. It means that you won't make that kind of mistake in the future, it makes you more equipped to be a good friend."

I paused. "But you still owe it to Remus to try to make things right." I didn't like Remus either, especially after his terrible irresponsibility in my third year when he failed to inform anyone that Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew had been illegal Animagi, which only resulted in no student deaths by sheer accident. But had he always been that way? What if his friends' actions had helped warp him?

And Sirius Black had been innocent of betraying the Potters, and held undying loyalty to them… but that didn't mean he was a good person. And I had just seen that truth unfold itself in the Longbottoms' living room. If Sirius tried to be better, and then did better… well, that's all any of us could do. It was all any of us should do, too. Lily had shown me my own mistakes, things about myself that I had restrained myself from consciously acknowledging for years. My fear of emotional attachment, of letting anyone get too close to me. Of not valuing my own accomplishments enough, since I always outbalanced them on the scale by beating myself up when I reminded myself of people that I hadn't managed to save.

Maybe it was fair that I showed her and Sirius _their_ mistakes? That is, after all, what friends do. Have each other's back. And having each other's back included pointing out to them when they've done wrong.

"I will need," Sirius began, "parchment, ink, and quill. I need to write a letter to Remus." His eyes moved around the room, finally meeting mine. He seemed about to speak, but did not seem to know what it was he should say. After a few seconds, he closed his mouth and left the room.

"I think I should apologize to Remus in person," Lily decided, "it's more personable and meaningful that way. Letters aren't as… what's the word."

"I don't have the word, but I know what you mean," I replied. My thought about mistakes, and how pointing out that friends had made them was a form in which friends had each other's back, occurred to me again… and I voiced as much to Lily.

"For someone who seemed to eschew friendship and its connections before," she said dryly, "you may be getting quite good at it."

Alice Longbottom arrived in the room, after a long day at the Auror Office. "There's this case at the Office that is really confusing the hell out of people," she said. "A man wearing only a sheet walked into the Ministry of Magic and reported that he had been Imperiused, and that his clothes and his wand had been stolen. The man's name is John Morris, age thirty-one. When the Imperius was gone, he reported the encounter as follows: an invisible individual Apparated behind him, Disarmed him, Stunned him, bound him in ropes, and then revived him. He was then commanded to answer questions about what date it was, and what year it was. The invisible individual then stole his watch, before commanding him to report his Imperiusement to the Ministry." She looked up from the parchment she had been reading. "Frankly, this is totally baffling."

Ah, crap.


	6. Inaccurate conclusions and information

Chapter 6 – Prevention

Inaccurate conclusions and information

(A/N: There's valid criticism, constructive criticism, and then there's pointless criticism, from reviewers who flip out solely for the reason that the story included an element that they personally didn't like. Have a good _narrative_ reason for something not to happen, instead of your personal distaste for such an eventuality.)

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _"_ _The man's name is John Morris, age thirty-one," Alice recalled the details of the case that had vexed her. "When the Imperius was gone, he reported the encounter as follows: an invisible individual Apparated behind him, Disarmed him, Stunned him, bound him in ropes, and then revived him. He was then commanded to answer questions about what date it was, and what year it was. The invisible individual then stole his watch, before commanding him to report his Imperiusement to the Ministry." She looked up from the parchment she had been reading. "Frankly, this is totally baffling."_

 _Ah, crap._

"This is one of Mulciber's games, it _has_ to be," Frank Longbottom stated his opinion. "Why else would he Imperius someone to report that he had been Imperiused? I swear, that curse is basically a game to him."

"Then why the questions on what date it was, and what year it was? And why steal his watch?" asked a confounded Alice.

"Mulciber always did like his little games," Frank said in disgust. "Take a person, Imperiuse him, give him nonsensical instructions with no actual purpose behind them, other than just fucking with people." He slammed his fist on the table. "Half of his Imperius victims get to walk away with the only injuries being utter confusion and damage to their pride… and the other half aren't so lucky. Families forced to butcher each other to death, that sort of thing."

"Morris was quite distraught over having been Imperiused," Alice said. I felt a pang of guilt, but my facial expression did not change. I knew that Lily knew Muggle psychology, and the slightest give-away could reveal the truth over who had truly Imperiused the man. "He insisted that the Ministry keep him in a holding cell until they could determine that he hadn't been compromised in a more lasting way than the Imperius Curse. A few months back, Mulciber smuggled a man into the Ministry carrying Erumpent fluid with instructions to fire a Reductor Curse at it when it was in the building. We barely caught him in time." She sighed. "These things seem to be getting more and more common these days. Fortunately, we have a Seer, whose knowledge of the future may hopefully allow us to curtail future attacks by Mulciber – if it was, indeed, Mulciber who cursed the poor man – and other Death Eaters."

"I'll see what I can do," I said, in an unsure tone of voice, "but even the True Sight is risky to rely on. Not even a true Seer can make 100% accurate predictions all of the time. You will have to take the chance that I am wrong a couple times."

"Try," she urged. "That's all any of us can ask of you. Fight the good fight, even when you aren't sure you will win. That's when courage shines brightest, you know. Not when you think you're going to win… but when you think you're going to lose." She looked at me meaningfully, obviously thinking of my fight against Voldemort.

"Voldemort will take precautions against me, the moment he finds out I am a Seer. There are spells that obscure your actions and activities from diviners, Arithmancers, and scrying. He'll take those precautions, as soon as he realizes. It will then become exponentially harder to act against him," I warned. It would, indeed, become exponentially harder – but not because I was a Seer, because I was not. But the obscuration spells that Voldemort would use would also make him and his Death Eaters harder to track… and thus harder to find and kill.

"We're keeping this under wraps," Frank said in a reassuring tone. "He won't realize to take those precautions, because he won't know that you are a Seer. And he will be too arrogant to hide himself and his men from the eyes of _one_ individual… it would be a concession of _pride_ , and that would be anathema to him. It would imply that he needed to hide."

"Dumbledore knows that I am a Seer," I disagreed. "And he will tell the Order of my capabilities… and there are still spies in the Order. Peter Pettigrew was not the only one. Once he tells the Order, Voldemort's spies will know, and reveal that information to the Dark Lord himself."

Frank frowned. "And do you know who the spies are?"

"No," I replied, "but I know he has them. And even if I didn't know if there were any spies, I should _still_ assume they exist."

"Dumbledore has vetted all the members of the Order, they are sure to be-" Frank started, before realizing the absurdity of his statement. "Oh."

"Yes," I agreed, " _Oh_. For all of the Headmaster's supposed vetting, Pettigrew slipped through his fingers. I'm sure there are more. In fact, I _know_ there are more."

Voldemort had boasted, back in _my_ time, about the amount of spies he had managed to slip in to his enemies' organizations. Fifteen in the Ministry, four in the Order, seven into Potter's faction, and thirteen into the goblin faction. It was a costly taunt for him to make… Voldemort had made that statement _before_ he'd had fully internalized the lesson that his plans worked better when he wasn't showboating. Potter quickly discovered the seven Voldemort loyalists in his faction and executed all of them. The goblins had discovered, equally quickly, the Voldemort loyalists in _their_ faction, and quickly executed all of them. But as far as I knew, the Ministry and the Order had never managed to find all of the spies that Voldemort had had in their ranks. I knew that for the Order, one was Peter Pettigrew, and another was Severus Snape… but I had never figured out the identities of the other two moles. I also knew that neither man was truly loyal to Voldemort. Severus Snape had hated the Order and Dumbledore, but he had _also_ hated Lord Voldemort just as much. I didn't know his reasons, but I did know that he hated both of them. Peter Pettigrew, of course, was loyal only to himself. He would have dropped Voldemort for a more powerful wizard instantly if one had come onto the scene.

"I trust your judgement," Frank said. "So you believe that Dumbledore should _not_ tell the Order that you are a Seer?"

"Of course not," I said, beginning to get impatient. "I just told you that Voldemort's spies would instantly learn of such a thing."

He pondered this for a minute. "We could give them misinformation," he suggested.

"Are you suggesting that we mislead our own fellow Order members in order to throw off the Death Eater spies?" Alice asked, looking slightly indignant. Outright deception didn't sit well with her.

"Yes," her husband replied. "Voldemort _wants_ information on the witch who prevented him from killing James Potter, and we must absolutely not let _him_ , of all people, know of her future foreknowledge." He paused. "Lily, are you _sure_ that no one overheard your conversation with James and Professor Dumbledore in St. Mungo's?"

"Yes," she said, "he cast privacy wards before the meeting. I'm quite sure that no one heard." She paused, before a thought occurred to her. "Whatever explanation that you're planning to sell, I'm not quite sure how you could explain it. None but the Death Eaters and Voldemort even knew he was going to attack that exact place, at that exact time, on that exact day. So there's really no logical explanation that doesn't involve, well, actual precognition."

"What if we claimed it was an accident?" I suggested. "That I've been trying to track down Voldemort for months for my personal vengeance, and that me stumbling across him when he was about to kill James Potter was an accident. There is no need for me to have _known_ where Godric's Hollow was, or even who is target was… if I am painted as a lone witch whose mission is revenge on the Dark Lord."

"We do not know if Voldemort believes in coincidences," Lily said. "I don't think he does. He would consider it too unbelievable that a witch who shouldn't have even known he was there showed up and attacked him at just the exact moment that he was about to kill my husband. And he would consider that unbelievable, because we also considered it unbelievable, at first, that a witch who shouldn't have even known we were there showed up to intervene at the precise moment. Voldemort didn't get this far from lack of paranoia and caution."

"He…would…consider that unbelievable," I reluctantly agreed. "But what if we said, it was – ah, crap. _Crap_."

"What?" she said.

"So James and I escaped Voldemort, Apparating to the Leaky Cauldron," I remembered. "That's a very public, high-profile place. Anyone could have and would have seen our conversation… including possible Death Eaters, and it would get even worse when they saw that Auror Longbottom had also been there."

"Oh," Lily said, grimacing, "that's a good point. So we need to prepare a story that is consistent with you, James, and Frank's appearance in the Leaky Cauldron. Not to mention it will soon become public knowledge that we've survived an attack on us by Voldemort _again_ , so we need a story that's consistent with that fact as well."

"What if you faked your deaths," I said, abruptly, without preamble.

"No good," she said, a little shocked at first at my suggestion, but recovering quickly. "James was _seen_ in the Leaky Cauldron, and he is on the list of current St. Mungo's patients. There's basically no way to pretend he's dead… and the Healers are not going to help a patient fake his death."

"After James leaves the hospital, then," I suggested. "We fake your deaths after James is discharged from the hospital, and then pretend that _I_ did it."

She paused, for a little bit. "No," she said again. "There are enough rumors of Death Eater assassins floating around, we do not need to add panic to the populace. Well, more panic," she amended. "If we did that, no one would ever trust their saviors from Death Eater attacks ever again." I paused, smacking my forehead. Right, that should have been obvious.

"Pretend that Voldemort did it, I don't know," I shrugged. She shook her head. "Too much of a PR boost for him."

"If you fake your deaths and pretend that he killed you," Frank said, as if we were having a purely academic discussion, "then he'll know that he didn't really manage to kill you. And he may announce that fact."

"Ah," I said. I opened my mouth again, to argue, who would believe Voldemort if he said that he _didn't_ kill someone?

Then I remembered that he was a grandstanding showoff, who wanted not only to win, but for everyone to acknowledge that he did it.

I seemed to be coming up with all sorts of bad plans today. This was not a good day for my ideas. "Uh," I said awkwardly, "so as Lily said, we need a cover story that's consistent with the observed events in Leaky Cauldron, and St. Mungo's, and doesn't have the explanation of 'I'm a Seer.'" I paused. "Any ideas? I am open to suggestions."

"We suggest that you are James' friend who he called by Protean-charmed devices when he realized that Voldemort was on his doorstep," the red-headed witch said. "You responded to his distress call as soon as you could, and so you arrived and interrupted the killing."

"If James is smart enough to call a friend by Protean-charmed device in the event of betrayal," I said, "he's smart enough to prepare an automatic Portkey out of the house in the event of betrayal. They aren't going to believe this story."

"Wizards and witches are stupid," she countered. "They'll believe it. And James is just ditzy enough to make one sensible precaution and yet not make the other, more obvious and effective one."

"We can say that Voldemort had up anti-Portkey wards that prevented James from using them to escape," Frank said, suggesting his own contribution to the deception. It was an amazing scene, an Auror conspiring to find the most effective lie to tell the public.

"Er, no," I said. "Because if Voldemort had those up, he would logically also have up anti-Apparition wards. And we escaped by Apparition."

"In a time of distress, a life-or-death situation, you managed to go beyond your normal limits and muster, by sheer adrenaline, enough power to punch through the anti-Apparition jinx," Lily suggested.

"You _also_ escaped by Apparition," Frank pointed out dryly. "Young Harry didn't like that at all, he threw up all over the table. I liked that table."

"Hmm," I pondered. "The idea of me already having been James' friend and thus coming to rescue him makes sense. I actually like that idea. There are worse people that I could be friends with." Lily twitched very slightly at that. What, had I said something wrong? I was sure I could deal with it later, so I pressed on.

"However, James calling me to him with a Protean-charmed whatever doesn't make sense when he could have used those few seconds to just escape the house entirely," I said. If nothing else, he could have always just tagged himself, Lily, and Harry with Switching Spells with objects that were _in another building_ at the time, and then activated them, creating the illusion of Disapparition. It would leave Voldemort scratching his head about how someone had managed to break through his anti-transport wards, which were notorious for being impossible to escape through. (Although, of course, Dumbledore had always ignored those wards, because of Fawkes, the phoenix.)

It didn't occur to me until much later that actually, most wizards wouldn't have thought of such an amazing utility for such a mundane spell. It was a shame, because the Switching Spell was an untapped gold mine. But it was also fortunate, because it meant it was a weapon in my arsenal that my enemies were not prepared to counter.

"No, a more appropriate cover story would be you realizing that he was in danger on your own with…" Frank Longbottom's eyes widened. "Ah, I see. _This_ could work." A smile crossed his face. "Molly Weasley's alarm clock, the one that shows the statuses of all of her family members? You can just say that you saw James on 'mortal peril,' and acted immediately. That will explain how you were able to intervene…"

Lily and I simultaneously palmed our faces, more than a little embarrassed that we hadn't thought of that idea as a cover story first.

"Okay," I said, recovering. "That's the story we'll tell, I guess. It would even explain why I appeared to be talking with James as if we were old school chums in the Leaky Cauldron."

"They'll try to find your identity," Frank warned, "that's one drawback of telling the story this way."

"Yes," I conceded, "but they will try to find out my identity anyway. That was sealed in stone the moment that I acted against Voldemort. He would obviously want to know who the mysterious interventionist was… which means that Dumbledore and the Ministry would make their own attempts to find out who it was." Not the goblins, thank Merlin. They hadn't gotten involved in the First War. It was destructive enough without them. When they had gotten involved in the Second War, an already fucked situation became even worse. Only _slightly_ worse, mind you, because we had all _already_ been completely screwed, but worse.

"They'll have closer clues to look at, though," Lily said. "They would know that you had met James in the past and will probably look in the rolls of Hogwarts graduates."

"I didn't graduate from Hogwarts," I said truthfully, before internally cursing myself for my slip-up. "They'll look, but they'll be chasing a dead end, maybe even come up with a wrong name since they'll assume that anyone competent enough to fight Voldemort must have graduated. Of course, if we tell them that I didn't go to Hogwarts, but went to some magical school abroad and that I am actually one of James' friends from a foreign nation, we could do that."

"They might believe that you are one of James' past paramours, or someone he's had an affair with," Frank said. "Not just _any_ old childhood friend would come and intervene against Voldemort. The war has made cowards out of many people."

"Some would say cowards, others would say sensible people," I said absently. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Lily's face had darkened considerably. Interesting. "And people gossip and look for leads, it is a fact of life. Unfortunately, we can't do much against that."

"Rita Skeeter will dig in and not let go until she finds something," Lily said, scowling.

"Rita Skeeter is an illegal Animagus," I replied. She, Alice, and Frank immediately shot up, now fully alert. " _What_?" all three of them exclaimed.

"Rita Skeeter is an illegal Animagus," I repeated. "And that is all the information you need to know to stop her from digging."

"That is tremendous news," Frank said, still looking a little off-balance from that bombshell. But he also looked a little thrilled. "We could have her arrested, and Bagnold and Crouch would be thrilled. They'd love to know how she was spilling all of their information to the newspaper-"

"You don't have her arrested," I replied, hating what I was about to suggest already. "You threaten her with the release of the information, but if we have her sent to Azkaban for being an illegal Animagus, people will believe that that isn't the reason she's being arrested, that the Aurors are covering something up. Instead, we use mutually assured destruction."

"She could always register as a legal Animagus," Lily said, "eliminating that line of leverage."

"She is not wealthy enough and nor does she have enough political allies to pull that plan off successfully," I said, contradicting her. "And add to that, if her status as an Animagus became known, everywhere in the world would enact anti-Animagus wards against her and she would never be able to get a good scoop ever again."

"So we blackmail Skeeter," Lily said, still looking unhappy. "But other reporters will also look into the connection between you and James if we push _this_ story."

"Oh, fine, they will," I sighed. "There are worse things I've had to deal with in my life than a few gossips. I've had to deal with wizards who are actually murderers. You can deal."

"I have also had to deal with wizards who are actually murderers!" she shot back, temper flaring. "I am still not okay that a potential consequence of airing this story will be that people will believe that James may be screwing you!" she burst out, turning red from anger or embarrassment or both. Wait, was that _it_? Was that the extent of her objection? Problems of accusations of infidelity seemed to almost pale before the problem of being murdered for your ancestry, abilities, defiance, or outspokenness. How was _that_ the most important issue that needed addressing?

"So what?! We can, I don't know, tell them that I'm infertile!" I yelled back, my own hackles rising. I was angry enough that I was disregarding that it was a huge faux pas to _mention_ infertility. "No cover story will be perfect, but we need to come up with one sooner or later so _no one finds out I'm a Seer_!"

"Your cover story is shit!" she exclaimed, glaring at me. "I truly have more than enough on my plate as it is, do you think I need to worry about fucking gossip tabloids trying to intrude on _my_ private life, trying to find a wedge between me and my husband, or God forbid, even trying to _create_ one?! Ignoring gossips is fine only as long as they _truly_ have no effect on your private life! And _this_ story would have an effect!"

"We claim that I'm his illegitimate half-sister, then," I snapped. "No one would accuse James of screwing his own sister. And it still gives a plausible reason for me to have the fucking clock that tells me if someone is in mortal peril. I can claim I inherited it from Henry Potter. We claim that I'm his illegitimate half-sister who was sent to another country to receive magical education, but that James and I knew each other. And then I came back to England when I heard that James' parents were killed, because it meant my father was dead. I liked it, and decided to stay here. But I brought the clock, and one night it told me that my half-brother was in mortal peril."

"…Is that actually the truth?" Alice asked. "Henry Potter grew unfaithful and had an affair with one of the Turpins, who raised you as their own and then-"

"No, it's not true," I rolled my eyes. "I am a Seer."

"I've got to say, that explanation seems a tad more plausible than you being able to see the future," Lily joined in. She seemed more amenable towards claiming this as the true story now.

I groaned, then a sudden thought occurred to me. "Exactly!" I exclaimed in response to Lily's point, "because that explanation is more plausible, they'll even believe it! And there's no one on whom the blame for that can fall, because James Potter's parents are dead and beyond blame. They won't be harmed by this story… because they're already dead." I winced at how insensitive that sounded.

"You may need to work on tact," Frank informed me.

"Sorry," I said, flushing.

"However, this does seem the best cover story that we can tell," the Auror said, scratching his head. "The infidelity part of the story is plausible, though I'm not _too_ comfortable with it. I _am_ a family man, and I greatly value marital fidelity, so…" he trailed off. "But it's a good story, and probably the best for protecting your true identity as a Seer. Besides, as you say, if you revealed you were a Seer, Voldemort would have to be an idiot not to take the proper precautions. Even if he didn't take them, his Death Eaters _would_. Which actually makes my argument that he would be too prideful to do such a thing a moot point."

"So, when are we announcing this story?" Lily asked curiously.

"Do we _have_ to announce this story? I don't like the idea of lying to the public, or to the authorities, about this… as well as smearing the reputation of a dead man as having been unfaithful to his wife," Alice frowned. "We can't very well vote on it, as I would lose 3-1… you seem determined to push this as the narrative."

"If you vote against it, I will accede to your wishes, and not push the story," Frank answered.

I sighed. "Another story, perhaps? They'll ask questions about who I am, sooner or later, and we'd _better_ have a plausible story to tell them."

"Claim that Sirius gave you the clock, and that you are Sirius's girlfriend," Lily said, a malicious gleam in her eyes. I sputtered. " _No_!" I exclaimed, blushing profusely.

"Doesn't assassinate anyone's reputation," she began listing off, cheerfully overriding my objections, "gives a plausible reason for you to know that James was being attacked, and gives a plausible, non-sexual explanation for how an attractive, powerful witch happens to know James Potter and save him from Voldemort. Also protects the secret of you being a Seer. I see no problems with it."

I floundered for a few seconds, while she watched me in amusement. That bitch. I finally settled on an argument that might work.

"If I am Sirius' girlfriend, how come Sirius himself didn't come to the house? The Potters, being attacked by Voldemort, would have needed _all_ the help they could have gotten. Why only me? And if I learned that James was in mortal peril, why wouldn't I have informed Sirius? Two wands would be better than one against a Dark Lord."

Lily scowled. _Aha! Take that!_ I internally crowed. Then she smirked. "Two 'wands,' eh? I bet you want to know a lot about Sirius's wand-"

" _Silencio_." The redheaded witch gestured rudely at me, before nonverbally unSilencing herself. "That was rude. Also, how did the Unbreakable Vow not kill you? I thought you'd sworn not to harm any of us in the house if it weren't self-defense or defense of another."

"One," I said, "Silencing Charms don't harm you. In fact, I think you quite benefit from being under them. Two, protecting my brain from the mental images you were inflicting upon me still counts as self-defense."

"Loophole abuser," she muttered. "Well, they won't ask for the story right away. We'll let them stew, trying to understand the mystery of what happened. We don't need to release the official cover story right away. Until then, we need to revise, come up with a better cover story for when that time comes."

"We could say she's a **time-traveler** ," Frank suggested frivolously. Only years of practice stopped me from reacting, from giving myself away. "Come back to save the world from a future in which Voldemort achieved victory."

It hadn't been _quite_ like that. We had **all** lost the war, but so had Voldemort. We were determined never to allow him to be the winner… and even though he, alone, was a match for perhaps ten wizards of average power at once, and kept coming back to life every time he was killed, and kept taking his enemies with him on the occasions that we _had_ managed to kill him… we were determined, we were desperate, and we were angry. Together, all three of those were a very dangerous combination… even for a nearly all-powerful, almost unopposed, and immortal Dark Lord.

Voldemort found, to his horror, that we had ways to make his immunity to death utterly irrelevant. And he found that out on one occasion when he crashed one of our DEAD attacks. One of us had stolen Harry Potter's old holly and phoenix feather wand (Harry Potter had been dead two years at this point), and used it against Voldemort's yew wand, drawing him into _Priori Incantatem._ Without that, we probably would have all died right there. There's no denying it… we were terrified of him, that was why we were so alarmed when he finally found us. But in that moment, trapped in the _Priori Incantatem_ and helpless to do anything except for struggle in the battle of wills of brother wands, utterly unable to prevent us from slaughtering more of his Death Eaters… he was more terrified of us than we were of him. His determination, his willpower, was not sufficient to allow him to win the battle of brother wands, because we'd shown him powerlessness, his own impotence as we killed his Death Eaters right in front of him and there he was, unable to do anything about it, because he was trapped in the connection. And that rattled him. And so he lost the _Priori Incantatem_ , and lost his wand too, he was unable to defend himself from us.

We Cruciated him. I'm not proud of that, but we did. It was one of the few ways that we knew of that would even neutralize the threat of an _immortal_. We knew if we didn't stop him permanently, right there, at that precise moment in time, we wouldn't get another chance. We had needed to end him… and not having the ability to kill him, we went for the next best option.

We Cruciated him. We Cruciated him until his voice and lungs gave out. Then we Cruciated him again. This was for everyone you and your fucking followers had killed over the years. _Crucio_. This was for tearing families apart from the inside. _Crucio_. This was for wiping out whole family lines for no reason other than their disagreements with him. _Crucio_. This was for committing wholesale murder on thousands of people simply because they weren't pureblood wizards. _Crucio_. This was for letting Bellatrix Lestrange loose on the population. _Crucio_. This was for laughing, in an expression of pure sadism, as _you_ Cruciated an innocent. _Crucio_. This was for Neville, who now shared the fate of his parents. **_Crucio_** _._

We'd kept going, kept cursing him with the most painful of the three Unforgivables, even as we grew tired and weary. When we did, we went into rotations. Finnegan would Cruciate him, then MacDougal would do it, then William Weasley would do it. And then Finnegan would do it again. We overlapped sessions of Cruciation, so that, for example, MacDougal always started her curse before Finnegan's ended. We allowed him no respite. And _my_ job was to interrupt Voldemort whenever he tried to lash out with wandless magic towards his tormenters, so the other three could Cruciate him freely. And we continued doing it. We didn't stop until the glazed look in Tom Riddle's eyes had become permanent. We didn't stop until he was insensate and his mind had been completely destroyed. We stopped when he didn't respond to anything anymore, when even starting an earthquake spell right under him induced no response in him. We defeated him by subjecting him to one of the worst magical tortures of all time, in a vengeance that would have made Bellatrix Lestrange proud.

It's why I refused to be proud of what we did… but I would do it _again_ , if I had to. Again and again and again, as many times as was necessary to remove that blasted man from the face of the earth.

I shook myself from my thoughts, returning to the conversation.

"Well, to be fair," Alice was saying, "she was indeed motivated by the need to prevent a bad future. So it would be half true."

"But in all seriousness," Lily put in her own two Knuts, "we couldn't tell that story, or other wizards would try to go back in time and reverse their own masters' defeats. Can you imagine if a Grindelwald loyalist heard a story like that?"

"I know that," Frank said in response, "it was a joke. I wouldn't really make that the story."

"We do need a better cover story," I said distantly, but my thoughts were elsewhere. "Are you sure we should not claim that I am James' illegitimate half sister?"

"We'd need expert forgers for that," Frank said seriously. "Fake birth certificates, fake school transcripts of your magical education in another country, fake letters written from your hypothetical father to your hypothetical mother and vice versa…"

"Ugh," I groaned. "I never realized how much effort was put into falsification until now."

Lily brightened suddenly, abruptly. "I think the cover story where you are Sirius' girlfriend still works better," she said with a wicked grin.

I scowled. "No. And you still haven't found a way for that story to explain Sirius' absence at Godric's Hollow when Voldemort attacked. If I was there, why wouldn't he have been?"

"He had an accident with the Floo Powder due to mispronouncing his intended destination in his panic and ended up in the wrong location, he ended up in Potter Manor instead of our cottage. Orrrr," she said, "Peter Pettigrew Stunned him to prevent him from interfering with Voldemort's attempt on all of our lives, a few minutes before. Thus, only you were there when James Potter's hand on the clock shifted to 'mortal peril,' and only you were able to arrive in time."

"That's a ridiculous assertion," I dismissed. "How do you explain Sirius not watching that clock very closely, if he had one of them? A Sirius who valued his friendship with James over everything else would watch that clock like a hawk."

Lily frowned, but quickly found an explanation for that as well. "Sirius wasn't with his girlfriend that night. You and Sirius both have a clock, charmed with Protean Charms. And you both saw the notice that James was in mortal peril. But Sirius, that night, was unfortunately with Peter, who Stunned him before he could act on the information he just learned."

"And you expect Sirius to go along with this? Tell everyone that Peter Pettigrew got the drop on him? For a cover story?" I said skeptically.

"I expect that I could manage to convince him," Lily replied. "So enjoy being Sirius's girlfriend for the cover story."

"Stop trying to set me up," I rolled my eyes.

"I've seen the way you look at him," she said seriously, "you may be one of the only people who can bring him down to earth, keep him grounded. You might be a good match."

Sometimes, I wished that Lily wasn't _quite_ so good at reading people. "I'm not interested in a romantic relationship at present," I said truthfully. "I have things more important than that on my plate." Sirius _was_ quite handsome and I _did_ feel attracted to him… but I had bigger priorities, and he would just be a distraction. Possibly even a fatal one. I had no interest in settling down and trying to start a family with someone, when we could all be murdered tomorrow. That had been true back in the Second Voldemort War, and it was true now, too. I wasn't like many of the other wizarding youths, who quickly got hitched and immediately produced children as fast as they could because they were terrified of being killed the next day.

"You need to live for yourself," she said, her tone no longer teasing. "Appreciating the little things… or the little big things, I should say, will keep you going. It will be inspiration and hope, allow you to persevere where others would turn back. You can't make your whole life about Death Eaters and Voldemort."

"Lily is right," Frank said, backing her up. "Even I, an Auror and Order member, for whom fighting the Death Eaters and Voldemort is an occupation, don't have my whole life about them. I have Neville, too, and Alice. They help me remember what I'm fighting for." He looked fondly at his wife, who smiled a dazzling smile back at him.

"My whole life _isn't_ about Death Eaters and Voldemort," I protested. "It never has been. And now that I have living friends again, you can help me remember what I'm fighting for. I don't need to have romance to experience the benefits of love and have hope in the darkest of times." Also, despite knowing his innocence and that I was attracted to him, I did also feel extremely queasy at the thought of dating the man who had threatened half a dozen students in Gryffindor Tower with a knife in my third year. There was some of that man in _today's_ Sirius… and that didn't sit well with me.

 _You could change him_ , a voice in my head said.

 _Shut up_ , I told it.

"Your whole life isn't about Death Eaters and Voldemort," Lily repeated skeptically. "Then what was that whole thing as a solo operator?"

"That was _one time_ ," I protested, defending myself. "The Inner Eye gave me almost no time to act on the information I had received. I had to go solo or not at all. And that was my first intervention – and hopefully the only one that I will ever undertake alone."

As soon as I said that sentence, I mentally slapped myself. Hadn't I promised myself that I should not want to drag the Potters, Sirius, and the Longbottoms into this whole assassination thing? What if they were killed because they decided to help me? Or what if they didn't take too kindly to assassinating the Death Eaters?

 _"_ _If anyone deserves death, they do," Lily said._

 _"_ _Friendship means you have each other's backs, we have yours because you had ours." Lily again._

"That had better be the only one you ever undertake alone," Lily said, looking at me sternly. "Because if you do something so stupidly brave as that again, if the Death Eaters or Voldemort don't kill you, _I will_."

I should have gulped in fear, at such a threat. But so many people had threatened me with death over the years, and in manners much scarier than her _protective_ threat… that it didn't really have an impact. I still agreed, since undertaking missions _alone_ was pretty stupid. Even as a member of the DEAD doing Death Eater assassinations, I'd never been completely alone. I'd always had minders by my side, ready to pull me out if things went sour, or fight by my side if the initial salvo of spells didn't quite work. The precaution she suggested was a sensible one, so I went along with it.

Instead of gulping in fear, I simply nodded and said, "I know you will."

(line break)

Voldemort was angry. No, he was _furious_. And he was also confused. Who the hell was the bitch who had showed up and thwarted his attempt on the Potter family? How did she even know to come there in the first place? And then there were the _tactics_ she had used. He replayed the fight in his mind.

Killing Curses at his back, when he was pursuing Potter further into the house. Although the first one seemed to have missed by a long shot, not even entering the house. The second one, though, had been much more on target. He remembered desperately rolling away on the ground _– on the ground, how humiliating! –_ away from the jet of green light that had been sent at him after the stag had knocked him down yet another time. He hadn't felt the typical rush of power in the curse when it passed by him… but he knew the power of the witch that had attacked him that night. She wasn't as powerful as him, but she _had_ cast Fiendfyre, and he'd _felt_ the raw power in that spell. And he had felt the intent, the rush of power, in the ice spears that she'd sent at his face. The power of the _Lumos_ that had temporarily blinded him, leaving him vulnerable to another attack run from Potter. He growled in anger as he unconsciously touched one of the many wounds that the stag had caused. And she had the intent and will to cast the Killing Curse. It didn't matter that he hadn't felt the typical rush of power in the spell. He'd _felt_ the magic and the power of her other spells in action… and knew he couldn't have risked being hit by the spell.

He may be immortal, but he didn't want to risk being hit by _Avada Kedavra_. It would still be quite the setback.

And then there was her spell choice. It didn't logically fit. The birds. And the Patronuses. The _fucking_ Patronuses, which only dissipated if the caster stopped paying attention. Intended to force him to wait them out for the duration of the spell, and use time that he didn't have, as she continued to attack him. An ingenious choice that would have worked on a less powerful wizard, who didn't have the raw power to spare to forcibly dispel the Patronuses and cast an area-wide Banisher at the same time. A choice that in fact, might work on wizards who had twice or three times her own power. She would have used ingenuity to triumph over power, and it would have worked, had he not been even more powerful than that. Her capacity for optimization of her lower magical power against his was truly amazing. She had to have known that a battle of raw power was unwinnable… and used a strategy that his ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, would have been proud of.

And Apparating right next to him when he'd cast Fiendfyre, forcing him to either lose control of the flames – which was suicide – or to direct them in her direction, which was also suicide, because she had physically grabbed onto him – or to dispel his own Fiendfyre, which would lose him valuable time and might as well be suicide. He had to admire the ruthless ingenuity and creativity of that choice, even as he hated her for resisting him. Calling his bluff, and putting to him the question of whether he was truly willing to kill her with the Fiendfyre if it would cost him his own body. She knew – she _fucking knew_ and had in fact been counting on his unwillingness to die with her in order to save herself from the conflagration. He'd read her expression, he knew that even with the ridiculous move she had undertaken, she had been utterly confident of her survival, because he couldn't turn the flames on her without consuming himself as well. She had assured the preservation of her own life, by counting on _his_ _own_ self-preservation.

Furthermore, she hadn't been afraid to take potshots at him from behind. And those potshots had made him vulnerable to the fucking stag. And the light charm, too, even though he'd managed to shield himself from it, it had cost him valuable time. And when he had turned the tables in their hit-and-run duel, she changed the battlefield by _collapsing the house with him inside._

There was only one possible conclusion to make.

He had drawn the attention of **_assassins_**. ASSASSINS! Someone had hired an assassin to kill him. Who precisely, he didn't know. He had many enemies. Any one of them could have done it. Even Dumbledore. Voldemort knew better than most that the old man wasn't as harmless as he liked to pretend he was. No, the suspects pile was too large to narrow it down.

 _Avada Kedavra_ from behind? Pure assassin. Every single one of her tactics was most suited to an ambush. He'd seen this trick before. He hadn't seen someone do it with _specifically_ Patronus Charms, but he understood the logic. The Patronuses produce blinding light, severely disorienting the enemy, who will flinch back from it. Therefore, the victim is defenseless against the assassin's final strike. He was perplexed on the response to the Fiendfyre, but he supposed the assassin had carefully studied his psychological profile, to see how he would react when forced to make the choice between self-preservation and killing his enemy. He was angry that the assassin had managed to predict his reaction _exactly_ , and even angrier that he'd had no choice but to play right into her hands, dispelling the Fiendfyre that should have blasted her to cinders. Not to mention collapsing the roof on his head… wait. She had never _stepped_ into the house. When he leashed the fireball and then proceeded into the house to kill his true target of the evening, James Potter, she didn't follow him inside. She could have, but instead she limited herself to harassing him from afar with Killing Curses from behind, or a _Lumos_ spell to light up the whole doorway in order to blind him again. And why would she limit herself like that?

The answer was clear: she _wasn't_ limiting herself. If she could have proceeded into the house to harass him with her brand of assassin-style ambush tactics, she would have. But she wasn't able to. The answer must have been the Fidelius Charm. Peter had not told the Secret specifically to her… so she wasn't able to see the house. She had tracked him – and wasn't that embarrassing for Voldemort, to allow himself to be tracked by an assassin – how had he not noticed she was tailing him? And then she had finally found him, when he was about to make his attack on James Potter's house. But the moment he had proceeded _into_ the house, she had found herself at a disadvantage. She couldn't see the house due to the Fidelius Charm! So walking into the house, when she couldn't see anything, would have been suicide. Thus… she stuck to her ambush from afar tactics. But she must have sensed at some point that it wasn't working, so she collapsed the whole house on both him and James Potter instead, so she could see him and adequately target him. And the way she'd used a necromantic detonation to blow up a dead tiger in his face, staggering him… _that_ was an assassin's spell.

Whoever trained her must have been good. Really good. And whoever _hired_ her must have been on the mark with his decision. She optimized and leveraged her magical power to take on people above her weight class. She would have made a fine Death Eater.

Unfortunately, she had tried to kill _him_ , and was an assassin by trade, so she would try again. So having her as a Death Eater was, regrettably, an impossible course of action. She would just have to die instead. As would whoever had hired her. It couldn't have been James who did the hiring, otherwise he would have been long gone when Voldemort had showed up. Why should he risk himself unnecessarily by being there when Voldemort and the assassin fought in person –

 _He's a Gryffindor_.

…

 _Son of a bitch._

Wait, no. That was wrong. He wouldn't hire an assassin and still be on friendly enough terms to trust her with his escape after she collapsed a building on his head in hopes of killing her target.

 _He's a Gryffindor_. _He could have even planned the collapse of the building. Didn't you find it_ _ **odd**_ _that he was just laughing at you, taunting you, even when you held him in your grasp? He knew his minder would collapse the building, leaving egg on your face instead of victory._

And from what Severus had told him of the man, James Potter was a Slytherin as well as a Gryffindor. But he'd only been able to be sorted into one house… leading people to underestimate him. Potter had _known_ Voldemort would find him and kill him eventually… so he hired an assassin to kill him. One of the best ones. That explained how he and the assassin had worked together so seamlessly against him, and why they talked to each other with the familiarity of old friends. Maybe they had even fought at each other's side before. And James hadn't even blinked when his assassin friend had cast Fiendfyre – a Dark spell whose name the Potter scion would have ordinarily hated even _hearing_. It must have been planned beforehand.

A Slytherin strategy, if there ever was one.

Potter was playing for keeps. He'd led Voldemort deliberately off-target to the wrong conclusion by fighting him straight-up as a Gryffindor would on the previous three attempts… leading Voldemort to falsely assume that that was how he would operate, always and forever. But the fucker had deviated.

Voldemort admired such cunning. When he found him again, he'd like to meet James Potter again, shake his hand.

And then kill him, of course.

(line break)

"What do you think, Alastor?" asked the old Headmaster.

"It's too suspicious," the old Auror said immediately. "This may be a convoluted assassination plot. Well-choreographed and showing the Dark Lord deviating from his previous pattern of arrogance, and avoiding damage being dealt to himself. But he allowed himself to be injured in this fight. It's a shift in Voldemort's tactics, a sign that he may be moving to playing the long con."

"Explain," said Professor Dumbledore.

"Voldemort wants all three of them dead," Alastor said promptly. "But the first thing James said was a warning to Lily to take Harry and run. Thus, Voldemort may have assumed that they were escaping even as they spoke, that even if he killed James right there, Lily and Harry would have slipped out of his grasp. But he doesn't play by halves, he wants all three of them dead. And the best way to do that is to stage a daring _convincing_ rescue – Voldemort even gets injured – by a 'mysterious hero,' who is actually a Death Eater, who 'saves' James Potter, thereby permanently gaining Potter's trust. In time, the Death Eater may also gain Lily's trust and be in the perfect position, then, to assassinate both of them. And the child. James, being too trusting, would never question the motives of the person who had supposedly 'rescued' him."

"A disturbing possibility," Dumbledore said. "What evidence do you have?"

"I believe she is an assassin. All the spells that she was using are assassin spells. Did you see the tiger's corpse exploding at the end of Potter's memory? That's a necromantic corpse detonation. The ice spears, the Killing Curses being fired from behind, the Fiendfyre – all assassin spells. The house collapsed in one hit – so she's one of the flashier assassins, one of the showoffs. Even the Patronus attack is a variant of a common assassin's tactic where they flash a bright _Lumos_ at their intended victim, leaving him too disoriented against their next and often final strike. If Voldemort were playing a long con in order to kill _all three_ of the Potters, instead of the one – he doesn't do things by halves, remember – an extensively choreographed fight scene with an assassin, someone who knows what they're doing, is probably the best way to do it," Moody replied.

Albus sighed; his friend wasn't very trusting. He was not sure whether Moody even trusted _him,_ and Moody trusted him more than he did most people. Still, he couldn't dismiss Alastor's theory out of hand. He was an optimist, and Alastor was a pessimist… and they needed balance when examining information and possibilities, to make it more likely they would come to an accurate conclusion. He doubted Alastor's theory, but he believed in empirical evidence.

He needed to _prove_ the truth or falsity of Alastor's theory, whichever one was correct. He knew, from what Lily had told him, that the young woman had seemed to distrust him and was reluctant about the idea of meeting with him.

 _I will need to meet her_ , he decided, _so I can determine for myself the extent of her trustworthiness. And if she is the good soul and defender of the innocent she claims to be… I will see if it is possible to gain her trust._

"I'll meet with her in person," Albus decided, "to determine the truth – or falsity, whichever is the case – of your theory."

"Albus," Moody exclaimed, looking aghast. "She's an assassin, they are famous for killing wizards and witches who are more powerful than they are. Don't get caught off-guard. I should come with you."

"It will be fine, Alastor," the Headmaster tried to reassure him. "People have tried to assassinate me before, and they have never succeeded."

"Only needs to happen once," Alastor replied. "You are not being sufficiently cautious, Albus."

"I'll be fine," Dumbledore repeated; his tone of voice seemed to indicate that the matter had been closed. "I _did_ fight Grindelwald and Tom, and she's noticeably less powerful than either of them. Did you see how she leveraged strategy and tactics against Voldemort's power in the memory?"

"Means nothing if they are choreographed," Alastor snorted. "And Grindelwald and Riddle fought you head to head, not indirectly in the way that an assassin could. It's the attacks when you are off your guard, and not in a battle, that you don't watch out for, Albus. And you _should_. It could save your life someday. I know it's already saved mine." He paused. "On another line of conversation… what shall we do about Pettigrew? And why didn't your bloody phoenix discover he was a traitor?"

"Peter is… a tough subject," Albus said, accepting the change in topic. "I hadn't expected him to be the Secret-Keeper, especially with James announcing to the whole world that they were trusting Sirius Black with the Secret. I thought that Sirius had gone back to his familial roots when I heard that Godric's Hollow had been attacked, because James had said he was the Secret-Keeper."

"You are sure it was Peter?" asked the old Auror. "I don't like the idea of one of the Aurors on my force being treasonous, Albus. You had better be sure. Be _very_ sure." His tone of voice indicated that Albus wouldn't like the consequences if he turned out to be wrong.

"I am sure as can be, Alastor," Albus replied. "Sirius swore an Unbreakable Vow with Arthur Weasley as the Bonder that it was Peter Pettigrew who divulged the Secret, and not him. And he's still alive."

"That's good to know," Alastor said, honestly relieved that he had not judged the young scion of the Black family incorrectly. "So, what will you do about Pettigrew?"

"He has been added to the official Ministry WANTED list," the Headmaster answered. "Also, Sirius informed me that he is an illegal Animagus, so we will accordingly strengthen the power of the wards of the school, and hopefully also of our members' homes, against Animagus infiltration."

"An illegal Animagus, huh? I suppose Black is one too," Moody said. "Come on, Potter and Pettigrew both are, and Lupin is a werewolf. So Black is probably an Animagus. It's a reasonable assumption to make."

Albus sighed. "You are right, of course, Alastor. We may also have to make them register before the Ministry as Animagi. James' status as an illegal Animagus is already exposed, since he attacked Voldemort with it at Godric's Hollow."

"That boy needs a boxing 'round the ears," grumped Alastor. "I'm proud of him – and don't you tell him that! – for having developed such a useful ability and keeping it secret as a surprise card to play in bad situations… but also it was extraordinarily reckless for him to try to learn the process with no adult supervision. He could have accidentally killed himself."

"How did you not discover Pettigrew?" Moody asked. "I thought you did extensive vetting of every person who joins the Order."

Albus shifted in the Headmaster's chair, suddenly looking quite discomfited. "Um…" he began articulately. "I screen recruits when they apply to join, and when Peter did, Fawkes read him. So happy to join for the cause of saving people from the Death Eaters, so happy to be part of something greater… Fawkes read his intentions as pure, and they were. So I allowed him into the Order with his friends, James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus. Their moral fortitude had always impressed me, and Peter was their friend, and they trusted him, and he them. So he had to be a good fit for the Order, and Fawkes agreed, reading his intentions as pure."

"But you didn't check on subsequent occasions, you only vetted the recruits at the beginning, during their application process," the old Auror said bluntly, dissecting his teacher's mistake. "So Pettigrew's intent changed somewhere down the line, and because you only checked him with the phoenix at the beginning… you never realized he had turned. And when you realized that there _was_ a spy in the Order… it never occurred to you to suspect _him_. In fact, you were baffled and thought someone must have been listening in on your conversations, instead of considering the possibility that someone had changed their intentions somewhere down the line… and turned traitor."

 _"_ _I trust everyone in this room," Albus remembered himself saying. "We've vetted everyone thoroughly with Fawkes and they are all trustworthy."_

 _"_ _But, to me," Albus remembered saying, "you will always be Tom Riddle." As he had spoken, it had struck him how similar Tom was now to how he had been more than twenty years ago._ _ **We don't really change, do we,**_ _he thought._ _ **You still see the bit of the youngster in the old man, the constancy of life. The continuation of already existing traits.**_

Had he extrapolated this line of thinking into an incorrect direction? That since Pettigrew was a good, noble, brave Gryffindor who entered the war to save as many lives as he could, that he would always stay that way? He knew he didn't believe in _absolute_ constancy, that we all remain the same forever, or he would not have believed in the possibility of redemption, of the evil learning to become better.

He was an optimist like that. But had his optimism _also_ led him to dismiss the possibility that a good person could become evil?

It seemed possible. In fact, as Alastor seemed to be saying right now, that was _exactly_ what he had done. And it had cost the Order the lives of some of its members, as well as countless bits of invaluable information – information that had helped Voldemort, in the end.

"I am simply a man," Albus sighed. "A man who makes mistakes. Very well… I will have Fawkes look over the members again." He had erred once by allowing a spy to sell out the lives of multiple people in his organization, because he had always remained too optimistic to consider that if an evil person could turn good… a good person could also turn evil. That mistake had cost _lives._

It would not be repeated again.


	7. Cover Stories and Order Meetings

Chapter 7 – Prevention

Cover Stories and Order Meetings

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _In fact, as Alastor seemed to be saying right now, that was exactly what he had done. And it had cost the Order the lives of some of its members, as well as countless bits of invaluable information – information that had helped Voldemort, in the end._

 _"_ _I am simply a man," Albus sighed. "A man who makes mistakes. Very well… I will have Fawkes look over the members again." He had erred once by allowing a spy to sell out the lives of multiple people in his organization, because he had always remained too optimistic to consider that if an evil person could turn good… a good person could also turn evil. That mistake had cost_ _ **lives.**_

 _It would not be repeated again._

"James!" exclaimed the portrait of Henry Potter. "I am glad to see you back. I was worried that I might not see you again – except as a portrait yourself – after you went in hiding in the Godric's Hollow safehouse."

"You almost didn't," James replied. "I almost died last Halloween at midnight. He came to our safehouse."

"You were betrayed, then," said the portrait. James' face twitched. He did not like the reminder that Peter had willingly given up the Secret. _I will have to meet him and talk to him again._ He knew that Lisa had said that Peter had given up the Secret of his own free will, without any need for torture on Voldemort's part, but he had to hope. He had to hope that there was still some of his old friend within him.

"Will you be staying here from now on? You will need a new location, of course," Henry's portrait said. "And I would suggest that you not use Potter Manor. You may be able to cast the Fidelius upon it, but the Death Eaters need only have a general idea of where the house is located. People will notice if such an obvious high-profile location like Potter Manor disappears; they will _know_ it's your specific new hiding spot even if it can no longer be found on a map or be visible to anybody else. There is another safehouse that no one but I and my wife knew, and I can give its location to you if you want another location. I suggest you use Sirius Black as your Secret-Keeper this time."

James fully agreed with this suggestion. "I came for advice. I was saved by someone named-" he stopped as he felt the tug of the Unbreakable Vow. "Oh, right. I took an Unbreakable Vow not to reveal her true identity." The portrait frowned. James continued, "She took on Voldemort to distract him and Lily, Harry, I, and her all escaped the house in the confusion. The house is destroyed, by the way. She revealed that she is a Seer and that is how she knew that Voldemort was coming to kill us that day. The problem is that I do not want to lose this advantage. Should we go public with the story that she is a Seer-"

"Then you will lose the advantage of being able to predict Voldemort's attacks," Henry finished. "Well, James? Have you thought of a cover story? You are a Marauder after all."

"She, the Longbottoms, Lily, and I have come up with several cover stories between us," James answered. "One was to claim it was a coincidence-"

"Absolutely not," his father's portrait said. "Absolutely not, because Voldemort, Dumbledore, and Crouch would never believe it."

"Yes, we surmised as much," said James. "We also suggested faking our deaths-"

"Absolutely not," his father's portrait said again. James grew frustrated. "Please let me finish my sentences, Father," he said.

The portrait grinned. "I'm screwing with you, lighten up. Go on."

"We dismissed that idea because it was too bad for morale and Voldemort would know we were planning something, because he knows we're all alive. We also suggested pretending that the witch was one of my past lovers, who was alerted to Voldemort's attack by something similar to the Weasley alarm clock, but we dismissed that idea too. The marital fidelity angle, you understand," James said and the portrait nodded in agreement. "Furthermore, the simple ties of having been past lovers are probably less than the fear of Death Eaters and Voldemort. Few people would risk themselves to intervene in such a circumstance. We also suggested pretending she was Sirius's girlfriend-"

The portrait burst out laughing. "James Potter," it managed between laughs, "don't you dare inflict Sirius Black upon that girl. How long before he cheats-"

"There was one last scenario we suggested," James said, "and that was pretending that she was my illegitimate half-sister who found out I was being attacked because her 'real' mother had told her of some of her family members and given her a charm similar to the Weasley clock to know if some of them were in danger, and she came back to Britain to fight when she heard that Voldemort was on the rise. Frank Longbottom objected to that one because you were known to have taken marital fidelity seriously during your lifetime."

"I take marital fidelity seriously, yes," Henry replied, more serious than he had been in this entire conversation so far. "Dorea!" he called, and his wife joined him inside the portrait. "James and I were discussing possible cover-stories to invent for a Seer who had saved James and his family from Voldemort, to prevent him from learning one of his enemies was a Seer and taking precautions to defend himself from Divination magic. I will add that it seems our son is only alive because of this level of foreknowledge."

"Okay," she said. "What are the cover stories?"

They told her.

"Hmm," she said. "Pretending that the girl is James' half-sister is best, it seems. The only other plausible explanation of her knowing _when_ _ **and**_ _where_ James was going to be attacked is to have some sort of family heirloom that indicates when family members are in mortal danger. That can only happen if she were an actual member of the family. As there is no public record of her ever existing, this is best explained by her being an illegitimate child. Those sorts of things are usually hushed up; discussed heavily in private and that would explain why James knew of her and no one else did."

"But the marital infidelity angle," James said, "it is-"

"It's true that we both took marital fidelity very seriously during our lifetimes," Dorea said. "But we are dead, James. The living are the ones who would be protected by this story. It's convincing – a hell lot of pureblood heads cheat on their wives. No one would question it. The only damage it would do would be to the posthumous reputations of two dead magicians, and that's valuable, but it's not more valuable than the lives that can still be saved if you lie about this."

"Also it doesn't do that much damage to my reputation anyways. _I_ take marital fidelity seriously but a lot of pureblood lords and scions do not," Henry chimed in again. "Think about how Sirius cheated on at least five girls when he was at school, then think about how admired he still is. I assure you, I can take the hit to a dead man's reputation if it saves lives. Just make sure whatever fake name you use for the girl is actually convincing. This is the cover story you should use."

"Er, all right," James said finally. He disliked using such underhanded tactics, but he would.

He had a wife and son to defend.

(line break)

"So wait," Frank said, "how could you pull off an impression of Professor Dumbledore so accurately if you didn't attend Hogwarts?"

"Albus Dumbledore is internationally known," I replied. "Now I-" The fireplace roared to life, and James Potter stepped out.

"James!" Lily exclaimed, jumping over to the raven-haired wizard and immediately showering him with kisses. I twitched.

"I spoke to the portraits of my parents about cover stories," he said without preamble. "They recommended that I pretend that Lisa is my illegitimate half-sister and that's how she knew where and when I was getting attacked. Also, her being an illegitimate Potter explains why she wasn't afraid to take on the Dark Lord."

"Hmm," Frank said, scratching his head. "Well, I don't like it-"

"I don't like it either," James replied, "but what's more important, the lives that could be saved by this ruse, or a dead man's reputation?"

"James!" Frank exclaimed in shock. "They are your _parents_!"

"And they recommended this plan," Potter shot back. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with Rita Skeeter-" everyone in the room shuddered, "-to go to. People will have seen me and you and Lisa talking in Hogsmeade, they'll want an explanation. Is she my paramour, is she an assassin, is she a _time traveler_ – not one of your better ideas, Frank, even in jest-"

"Oh, fuck off, James," Frank retorted, but there was no malice in it. James grinned, and disappeared into the fireplace again.

"I hope he's safe," Lily murmured. "Voldemort will be actively gunning for him in the next few days."

"No, he won't," I disagreed. "He will be trying to figure out how exactly he got set back, which means he'll be trying to find as much information on me as possible. Now, in a week or so, the danger will be higher."

A letter materialized inside the room. I jumped back, drawing my wand.

"What the – it's just a letter," exclaimed Alice.

"Sorry," I mumbled, only just now remembering I was in a time from before all sides of the war had started trapping rolls of parchment with time-delayed explosive spells and owling them to their enemies. "Old habits."

Alice picked up the parchment and read it. "Professor Dumbledore is calling for another meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, he says it's a matter of urgent importance."

"He's bamboozled by the events of Halloween," I said immediately, "and you want me to come to explain things."

"Um…" Alice began. "Yes?"

"He already 'knows' I'm a Seer, Lily told him quite a lot," I snapped. "What more do you want me to give him? Do you want me to join his little Order and swear fealty to him?"

"Why do you dislike Dumbledore so much?" asked Lily, eyes wide. "Why do you not want to give more information to him? Voldemort is the enemy to all of us."

I glared. "Someday you'll find out the answer to that, and then you'll question everything you ever thought about the Headmaster."

"What has he _done_?" the redhead pressed. "If it's something really horrible, we deserve to know too."

I paused. There were a million and one things that I wanted to say to that. _He's horribly manipulative. He'll sacrifice the whole world for a crackpot interpretation of an old fraud's prophecy. He keeps everything too secret – do you know how many people died because he never bothered telling us Voldemort was immortal?_ Or, _do you know what he did to your son? A bright, determined young man, who might have grown to be humanity's future in another timeline, instead driven to isolation, madness and eventually murderous insanity by his headmaster's plans?_ None of them fit. Anything that I had a grudge against Albus for hadn't happened yet. Except…

 _They believe I am a Seer._

"I've seen some of the things Albus does in the future," I said vaguely.

Lily frowned in consternation. "Surely you can't mean to suggest that _Albus Dumbledore_ would go Dark-" she started.

"He is very much an ends justify the means sort of man, Mrs. Potter," I said gravely. "Do you know what would have happened to Harry had I not intervened on Halloween?" Harry's mother paused, looking uncertain. "Voldemort would have killed all three of us?"

"No. Fuelled by desperation, you and James managed to take down Voldemort even without your wands, but you died in the process," I answered. At least, that was what I thought happened. I had no idea how James and Lily had managed to temporarily 'kill' Voldemort if, by their own admission, they had not even had their wands when he came to the house. "Harry survived, and was remanded into the care of his only surviving relatives, Vernon and Petunia Dursley. And because of that, the world descended into nightmare. Oh, not immediately," I said in response to her questioning look. "But it turns out that spending ten of the first eleven years of your life unloved by anybody does not do good things to a young wizard's psyche."

Lily's mouth slowly opened in horror. "How do you know this?"

"I am a Seer," I reminded her gently, the lie easier to tell every time I repeated it.

"That can't – that can't be what would have happened," she said, voice full of panic and denial. "I can't believe – I can't believe that Petunia would do such a – you must have had a weird dream, or been on acid, or-"

"This really happens. When I See things, I See them so vividly it's like I am _there_. I knew you and James would have died had I not arrived at Godric's Hollow because I Saw a future in which that happened, so vividly it was like I experienced it. I know what would have happened to Harry had you two died, and he lived, because I was there. The Sight showed me _exactly_ what would happen to young Harry were Voldemort to kill you. I know exactly what Petunia and Vernon are like, and exactly how they would treat a magical nephew, because when I See a possible future, it's like it really happened." I was stepping as close to the truth as possible without actually telling it.

"But we said Harry would live with the _Longbottoms_ in our will," Lily protested. "How could-"

She trailed off as my expression grew even darker.

"What happens to the Longbottoms in this future… is not something I like talking about. In the euphoria that occurred after you and James managed to kill Voldemort defending your son, the Longbottoms lifted the Fidelius Charm on their Manor, because Voldemort was dead and they were celebrating because Death Eaters were getting apprehended left and right and center and it was fun. Flitwick even hugged Vernon Dursley _despite not knowing the man_ and said 'you should be glad You-Know-Who is gone!'"

"What happened to us?" Frank asked. I hesitated. "What happened, in this future when you didn't make your stand against Voldemort?"

"Bellatrix," I whispered.

His and Alice's faces turned pure white. There was silence for a few minutes, as he digested this information. Then he spoke.

" _Fuck_."

"Neville?" Alice managed to ask, grabbing onto Frank for support.

"Augusta," I said, since we were apparently doing one-word questions and answers. She and Frank did not look happy about this. Lily spoke again.

"But if Voldemort was dead, what happened afterwards that was so terrible that you felt compelled to intervene? Many Seers take the long view, if they saw that intervening led to Voldemort being alive and not intervening led to him being dead, why intervene? Why would you, a Seer, come to rescue us knowing it would come at the incredible price of Voldemort's survival? He'd kill thousands more if he was alive than if he died with us at Godric's Hollow."

"Oh, that," I laughed again, there was nothing sane or humorous in it. "I _was_ taking the long view. And I still am taking the long view." Lily looked astonished.

Dumbledore's letter beeped insistently, it had been several minutes since it had arrived and no one had replied to it yet. In irritation, I raised my wand to destroy it, but Frank shook his head warningly.

"The letters are charmed," he said. "If one is destroyed, Albus knows" – _oh shit_ – "and assumes we were compromised. I think you should come, explain to Albus exactly what it is you saw when you didn't intervene. If it is what Harry's childhood would be like if his parents were to die, and Bellatrix to get Alice and I, and you blame Albus for that, you can tell him about that, explain it to him-"

"He will not understand," I said. "It is impossible to argue with someone as stubborn is Albus. My time would be better served speaking with Barty Crouch Sr. to get carte blanche to kill Death Eaters. The Lestranges are a nightmare in a straight fight, but they are fairly vulnerable to assassin's tactics."

"You would improve Order morale," he tried arguing. "Meeting someone who defied the Dark Lord in person and could even use foreknowledge to predict Voldemort's attacks-"

"We're not telling them that, by the way," I interrupted, as intransigent as ever.

Dumbledore's letter beeped again.

I sighed. "Can I Silence it? Anyways, we're telling them that I'm James' illegitimate half-sister. You know what happens if Albus tells the whole Order that I'm a Seer in an organization that still has spies in it."

"That means we should come to the meeting sooner," Frank said, "to stop him. Also he did say it was a matter of critical importance-"

"It means _you_ should come to the meeting sooner, not that _I_ should," I replied.

"You'll have more people who will have your back," Lily said.

Frank and I started, looking at her.

"If you go to Barty Crouch," she said, "he'll give you a bunch of Hit-Wizards as allies but they are an untrustworthy bunch. Mercenaries always obey whoever has the most gold to give out. The Order is more reliable," she continued her plug of the virtues of the organization, "we may not agree with how you view Albus, but if you stand against Voldemort nothing but death could stop us from standing with you."

"You die a lot," I said neutrally. "And many of the members of the Order, despite a full Hogwarts education, are piss-poor at defending themselves."

"You sound like Alastor," Frank laughed. "You and he could help train them, make them more able to defend themselves and their families."

"And to do that," Lily chimed in, "they have to trust you, and you should meet them."

I scowled. "You're really set on making me do this, aren't you? Do I have a choice?"

"Yes," Frank answered immediately, while Lily said, "No."

I glared at her. She held up her hands in surrender. "I don't want you to live the rest of your life tormenting yourself thinking about what you could have done better to save who you lost," she said. I glared harder. "And besides, the more important issue is who you can save in the here and now, and not who you could have saved in the past. Besides, you're a Seer; no one can do better than you at this. If you really don't want to, we won't force you. You're our friend first, always remember that."

The agency of choice. If I didn't want to, I wouldn't be forced to. The ability to choose my fate, make my own decisions. It was better than anything Albus ever offered to young Harry Potter.

Maybe I couldn't trust Albus. But I could trust the Potters, I supposed, and the Longbottoms. And Lily was right – I did let my past losses haunt me a lot. Unfortunately, we were in wartime, and the worst possible thing I could do was dwell on them.

"I'm in," I said finally. "Where do we go?"

Dumbledore's letter beeped again.

(line break)

"I want you all to listen very carefully," Voldemort spoke to the assembled room of Death Eaters.

"I have drawn the attention of assassins," he said. There were gasps from the crowd. "On Halloween, I went to the home of the Potters to kill them, as they have been a thorn in my side for so long." He did not mention the Prophecy; he was not ready to disclose that information to his servants yet. "Potter bought time for his wife and son to escape, and he was helped in this by an assassin that he had designated to kill me. They fought me for a while and then disengaged, fleeing to Hogsmeade. The assassin was well-versed in that blinding tactic some of you know-" Lucius and Dolohov nodded, having experience in the assassin department – "and can cast at least the Killing Curse, so you may assume knowledge of all three Unforgivables. She also has some knowledge of necromancy and flame spells, and can cast Fiendfyre. Also, be aware that James Potter is a stag Animagus and may use this as a surprise resource if you fight him. These people are mine to destroy. But be warned; Potter and the assassin are cunning and dangerous, able to fight against _me_ , even if two-on-one. If you see them, do not engage, and report to me as soon as possible. Potter was clever, knowing that I'd come for him again, and designated an assassin to kill me in order to save his life. Also, Peter Pettigrew is a traitor and in on Potter's plan to use the assassin against me. You are to bring him in and kill him. Or kill him and bring him in. I do not particularly care which."

"We sure Wormtail's a traitor?" grunted Rowle. "He seemed scared shitless when we interrogated him. Also, lad's got no Occlumency shields."

Voldemort waved away Rowle's point. "You can't pick up a lie if he's had himself Obliviated of those parts of the plan," the Dark Lord said, realizing what had obviously happened. "If he told me willingly in the first few seconds, I wouldn't Cruciate him and break the Memory Charm. I would be unaware of the ruse. I cannot have discerned that he was planning for the assassin to be at James Potter's location at the same time as I, if he didn't know it himself. Clearly Potter's plan was to have Pettigrew Obliviated, then have him betray the Secret, and immediately afterwards have the assassin hiding around Godric's Hollow to intervene against me when I arrived to kill him and his family. It is an ingenious way to get around Legilimency."

The room broke out into chatters. "Potter thought of _that_?" exclaimed Avery. "He's supposed to be a stupid Gryffindor!"

"Not as stupid as you think, Avery-"

"Well, when you think about it, the Marauders were quite cunning-"

"Potter is a waste of air and I hope he dies painfully-"

"Easy there, Snape, we don't want your head to explode from sheer rage-"

"There is no other explanation," Michael Selwyn interrupted over the crowd, "for the assassin to be at James Potter's location at the same time as the Dark Lord. Were the assassin simply someone who was designated to kill the Dark Lord by somebody else, he probably would've come at some other time. No, the assassin was hired by Potter, that's how he could actually _see_ the Dark Lord to fire at him. The Dark Lord Apparated right to the front doorstep, an assassin hired by somebody else wouldn't have known the Secret of the Fidelius. Which was told to him by Pettigrew."

"The assassin is a _witch_ , Selwyn," Thaddeus Nott snapped, and the Dark Lord stepped in. "Selwyn's explanation, as challenging as he finds pronouns-" there were some snickers from the crowd, and Selwyn looked mutinous – "is not without merit." Selwyn straightened up in pride again. "His explanation is essentially correct. I want us to be careful in the next few days. If James Potter hired an assassin, the other members of the Order can too. There may be bounties placed upon the rest of you in the next few days. It may be a shift in how our enemies are fighting the war, escalating to the point of being willing to use assassins. It does not fit their usual method and that is precisely why we should be on guard. But you may need to watch your backs in the next few days." Some of the assembled Death Eaters looked quite worried this, unsure they could defend themselves from assassins.

Bellatrix did not. "Let them come for me!" she proclaimed loudly. "I will overpower and kill them, and then kill their paymasters, too! And they will suffer first. I will Cruciate them so hard they will be begging for death long before I even begin."

Voldemort sighed at his most faithful's theatrics. There was a reason she was not the second-in-command. Too overconfident, too unstable.

"Dismissed, Death Eaters. And be careful." He left the room. Many of the Death Eaters did likewise, intending to return to their own homes. Soon, Avery, Mulciber, and Snape were the only ones remaining in the room.

"Merlin, I still can't believe Potter thought of that," Avery exclaimed.

"Yeah, you almost have to admire the bastard. Not to mention the duels with the Dark Lord that he managed to survive before reaching this point. Truly, a worthy opponent," Mulciber added. "It's a shame he could not be on our side."

Snape fumed, "Potter is a waste of air and an arrogant piece of shit whose abilities are far less than his overinflated opinion of himself."

"What does that make you?" Avery said, eyes wide in fake curiosity. Snape reached for his wand, and an owl flew into the room with a letter, interrupting him. He scowled and picked up the letter, then scowled some more.

"Dumbledore's calling a meeting," he said. "He says it's of great importance. As a spy, I naturally must go and learn about, then report on it."

"All right," Avery said, pointing his wand at the fireplace, which soon ignited. Severus Snape threw Floo powder into it, stepped into it, and disappeared.

(line break)

"I still can't believe you managed to talk me into this," I said as we headed to the location mentioned in Dumbledore's letter.

"Remember, this is the better option for not working alone. Crouch and Hit-Wizards are an unreliable bunch," Lily said helpfully. I rolled my eyes. I probably knew that better than she did. Crouch sprung his Death Eater son from Azkaban after all, and Hit-Wizards always worked for whoever gave them the most money. If Voldemort managed to outbid his enemies, they would work for him instead. It was true that was an incredible risk.

I felt the same about the Order and Dumbledore. The Order weren't even that good at what they did; only a handful of them even killed their enemies instead of imprisoning them, even in self-defense. And they let moles like Pettigrew in, despite having a master Legilimens and an intention-reading phoenix.

And Lily still trusted Dumbledore too much, even after what she had been told about her son's potential future childhood with the Dursleys.

 _"_ _I'm sure he would have had the best of intentions," she said. "He just misjudged Vernon and Petunia's character, similar to me."_

 _"_ _I don't care about Albus's intentions," I said, "I See the results, and the result is that a brilliant determined young wizard who could have been humanity's future gets twisted into an alone, isolated, bitter madman by enduring a childhood with no love for 10 of the first 11 years of his life. You thought I was not playing the long game when I allowed Voldemort to live to save the lives of you and your husband, but_ _ **I am.**_ _I'm playing the long game by ensuring that this young man grows up with a loving family who values him at every turn._ _ **Everything**_ _goes wrong if he does not."_

 _"_ _I think you're doing Albus too much of a disservice," Lily argued. "You're holding him responsible both for things that haven't happened, and for what would have been the actions of Petunia and Vernon. Besides, thanks to your actions, we are alive and therefore Albus cannot remand my son to their care. We can also persuade him with the Seer visions that giving Harry to Petunia and Vernon would not be a good idea if we were still to die."_

 _I didn't feel convinced._ _ **You don't know the things Albus did in the 90s to ensure victory, how unbelievably not worth it his actions turned out to be, how everything went completely wrong**_ _, I wanted to scream. But they hadn't happened yet; what argument did I have? I knew what penalties the Unspeakables inflicted upon people who time-traveled illegally._

"We are here," Frank Longbottom said, opening the door. We stepped inside.

I was tense. Lily said I would be among friends, but I didn't feel reassured.

My eyes scanned the table. I saw Dedalus Diggle, Dumbledore's childhood friend Doge, Hagrid, Minerva McGonagall, Filius Flitwick, Moody, Podmore, Andromeda and Ted Tonks, Molly and Arthur Weasley, Emmeline Vance, and the Squib, Arabella Figg. And there were a few other members I didn't recognize.

The fireplace flared green and Sirius Black and James Potter stepped out. Potter's eyes widened slightly in surprise when he saw me, then he smiled. Sirius winked. I pretended to be interested in the table decorations.

There was a loud _crack_ of Apparition, and Aberforth Dumbledore materialized into existence. A few Order members barely concealed scowls, as it was so rude to Apparate directly into a host's home. Albus appeared not to notice the slight.

"Why have you called this meeting, Albus?" began Vance, sounding irritated. The Headmaster held up a finger. "We have one more guest who will be joining us," he said. "Please stand by."

"Who?" she demanded. "These are all of the members of the Order I know of, minus that traitor Pettigrew."

"One more," Albus said, "he is a spy on Lord Voldemort" – most of the table shuddered – "for me and I have utmost trust in him."

"Well, I don't," Moody spoke, "and who the hell is she?" All eyes of the table turned to look at me.

"I see you have met my half-sister," James Potter spoke, "and the one who intervened in Godric's Hollow on Halloween."

"What," Moody said. "The assassin?" I twitched very slightly, seeming to confirm Moody's suspicions. The old Auror drew his wand. I reacted instantly.

The chair Moody was sitting on vanished. Moody's eyes, both his normal and magical ones, widened in surprise. He did not fall, but he stumbled.

The chair rematerialized into existence right above Moody's head, and fell on top of him, driving both chair and man to the floor in a crash.

In an instant, almost every wand at the table was out and pointed at me. "Stand down, everyone!" James Potter yelled in a panic. "What the hell was that?" he said to me.

"Sorry," I said. "Old habits."

Moody threw the chair off of him, looking furious. "The assassin," he growled. "Why did you come here?"

I played the part of the innocent witch, affronted to be accused. "I came to help the rest of the Order, on James Potter's own request. I have few loyalties, but my half-brother is one of them." James nodded emphatically.

"Albus, are you mad?" Moody demanded. "You invited the assassin _here?_ "

"We can trust her," James said. "She's sworn an Unbreakable Vow for the duration of her stay here not to harm anyone unless in defense of herself or another."

"She's not an assassin-" Lily started.

"I saw the memory of the encounter with Voldemort!" Moody thundered, causing half the table to flinch again. "Almost all of those spells were right out of assassins' playbooks! Not an assassin? And how was that Unbreakable Vow worded?! Oaths have loopholes!"

"Show them the memory, Alastor," I said, trying to make myself sound as bored as possible. "Show them the memory, and see how the Order members react to seeing me trying to _kill Voldemort_ and saving my half-brother's life."

The old Auror looked mutinous, especially as he was realizing that I was right; that memory would only make me look good to the rest of the Order, even with the dubious legality and morality of some of the spells I was using.

The fireplace flared green again, and a very familiar face stepped out.

Severus Snape.

Instantly, six wands pointed in his direction; Alastor's, James's, Lily's, Sirius's, mine, and Aberforth Dumbledore's.

"At ease, ladies and gentlemen," Albus said. "Severus means you no harm."

Moody opened his mouth to say something biting, but Aberforth beat him to it. "Albus, you _know_ this man is a Death Eater working for You-Know-Who! Why would you invite him here? Do you really think he's loyal to you?"

"Severus turned spy for me fairly recently at great personal cost to himself," Albus said. "He was indeed loyal to Lord Voldemort at one point but he has seen the error of his ways and is doing everything he can to rectify that. Obviously, I don't know this for sure, and that is why I invited you all here today.

"It has come to my attention that I only vet prospective recruits to the Order at the beginning of their application processes. I did this foolishly assuming that a good person could never change and become an evil person, that someone who was brave and anti-Voldemort could never be turned to his side. I have seen, of course, that this was incorrect with the betrayal of Peter Pettigrew, who had passed information in secret to Lord Voldemort for almost an entire year now. This oversight of mine has cost lives. I will now be reading all of your intentions once again, to determine if you are all still trustworthy," he said, "with my trusted phoenix, Fawkes, who can read purity of intention. That is the matter of urgent importance I was discussing with you all. Alastor and others who have displayed concern, if the assassin-" the Potters and Longbottoms, at least, looked furious that I was being described this way (even though it was technically accurate) – "and Severus, or any other member about whom you have doubts about their loyalties, we will find out tonight. If you are firmly on the side of the Light, you have nothing to worry about and nothing to hide."

"Did you know this would happen?" I asked Frank Longbottom, out of the corner of my mouth.

"No," he said, looking quite astonished. Albus had assumed it was impossible for an Order member to become a Death Eater? Lily, Aberforth, and Vance looked apoplectic at this invasion of privacy. I wasn't that far behind.

Fawkes materialized in Albus's right palm in a flash of fire. Its eyes scanned the room in a circle, looking for any signs of deceit and treachery. It passed over James Potter and Sirius Black easily, as well as Hagrid. It lingered for about three minutes on Alastor, to the old Auror's consternation. I felt a bit of schadenfreude at this. The old bastard often questioned whether others were trustworthy, but he sure hated it when it was done to _him_. The bird seemed to decide he was trustworthy enough, because he moved on from Alastor after seeming to give a wing up in approval.

Then the bird turned to me.

 _Hmm_ , Fawkes said in my mind. I glanced warily at the phoenix, unable to conceal my distrust of it as Albus Dumbledore's familiar. _Time traveler? Come to prevent something?_ The bird asked telepathically.

I should've felt angry that my mind was being intruded upon, but I felt more terrified. I knew what happened to time criminals. Why had I consented to come to this meeting? I _knew_ that his dratted bird had unique abilities to read people!

 _You don't trust Albus_ , Fawkes said.

 _Of course I don't_ , I replied, anger starting to win over again. _He sent you to invade my mind, and that's not to mention what he did to Harry in the name of the Prophecy and of utilitarianism._

 _That hasn't happened yet,_ the phoenix said. _But you are here to prevent a…_

Images flashed through my mind.

 ** _Albus Dumbledore self-righteously proclaiming that Harry Potter needed to die in an act of self-sacrifice to kill Voldemort. Albus saying Harry had gone dark when he said he wasn't willing to die. Albus kidnapping Neville Longbottom when Harry was unwilling to play the part of the Vanquisher of Voldemort that the prophecy spoke of. Albus, saying that having the young Harry grow up spending 10 of the first 11 years of his life completely unloved was necessary for him to have the self-sacrifical, power of love mindset needed for him to fulfill the prophecy._**

 ** _Harry Potter, turning bitter and angry towards us, his classmates and confidantes. Saying we were all untrustworthy, that we could all secret agents of Dumbledore or Voldemort. That bitterness and anger turning into insanity, and then murder, because the Dursleys had never taught him that human life was valuable. Murder, not only of the Death Eaters (which I thought was awesome), but also of the Imperiused, of Muggles (who he assumed were all like the Dursleys), and the eventual adoption of an 'ends justifies the means' philosophy quite similar to his hated headmaster's, that no price was too big to pay for victory._**

 ** _Lord Voldemort, coming back to life no matter how many times he was killed, each time just as strong as before. Every time he died, there were a few less people willing to stand against him, whether because they died or because they gave up. Our sheer desperation when we enacted our last stand against him when he crashed a DEAD attack. Our fear and hatred permeating the air, because this half-man, half-monster had killed most of our family members. Our sheer desperation of being driven to the point of endlessly using the Cruciatus Curse on him, even though we_** ** _knew_** ** _that curse harms the caster's mind too._** _ **Us rushing fruitlessly to Neville's side after the battle was done, only to learn that he too was**_ _–_

 _ENOUGH! Please, stop_ , I begged the phoenix. _No more. How dare you make me relive that again! How dare you call yourself a pure being of light and good, not when you trash other witches' and wizards' minds, and work for a man like that, who believes that the ends justifies the means, who was willing to condemn a one-year-old baby to such a childhood that it is no wonder he snapped and became a murderer himself –_

 _I see, now,_ the phoenix replied. _You have only the best of intentions. Time criminal or not, you are here to save as many lives as possible. You are willing to stand against anyone, speak against anyone, to get there_. It sounded almost proud. I was unsure whether to feel irritated, angry, or relieved.

Another image flashed through my mind, me telling Sirius off – even though I actually admired him – for endangering Remus Lupin's life in his sixth year. _You are willing_ , Fawkes said, _to stand against your friends as well as your enemies. You are willing to speak truth to power. You stand against my wizard, but you are doing what you believe is right. You killed, but in defense of you or others, to bring about peace. You cursed Tom Riddle to destroy his mind, but it was to save others from him. You used Unforgivables, but you didn't revel in them_.

 _Good luck, Lisa Turpin,_ the dratted bird said. _Do not lose sight of your goals. Also, the pseudonym that James drafted for you is Alissa Porter. He didn't check the complete cover story he gave the reporter with you first so it would have been exposed as false had Moody asked you your name. I will rectify this now._

Then the phoenix turned and gave a thumbs up to the Headmaster. _Trustworthy_ , it said.

I felt relieved, but also felt a little unease. No, I felt a lot of unease. I could have had my time criminal status blown wide open. The dratted bird could have decided that anyone who stood against Albus was evil. The dratted bird gave approval to my mission, but ransacked my mind with no regard for privacy first. I did not want to have a conversation with Fawkes again, no matter how seemingly benevolent it had turned out to be.

Moody's mouth fell open in astonishment. James and Lily looked proud, like they had never doubted me.

Yes, there was definitely no way Harry would go murderous if his parents were alive.

The phoenix turned to a few others: McGonagall, Flitwick, Doge. It lingered for a particularly long time on one man that I didn't recognize, before giving the 'thumbs up' again. It checked some other members, but they seemed to pass under the immortal bird's scrutiny pretty easily.

My mind drifted back to the conversation with the Headmaster's familiar again, as it moved on to Andromeda and Ted Tonks, and an uncomfortable-looking Vance.

 ** _I see, now_** , the phoenix had said. **_You have only the best of intentions._** Was that why the phoenix loved Dumbledore so much, and continued to remain his familiar even after the visions it saw in my mind about what the Headmaster could do?

Even though the bird had passed me, I felt more unsettled than before.

The bird stopped at Severus Snape, looking at him closely. It did not raise a wing upwards for him. It gestured, pointing at Severus, than at Albus, then almost seemed to glare at the Headmaster. The familiar and the wizard locked eyes in a seeming battle of wills. After a while, Fawkes reluctantly nodded.

"I am pleased to say," Albus Dumbledore finally spoke, "that I have determined that all of you here before me are trustworthy and will not betray the Order."

What.

(line break)

"That is the most incompetent organization I have ever seen," I muttered as we left the safehouse.

Frank Longbottom looked unsettled, but came to the defense of his old Headmaster. Old habits die hard, I suppose? "Not all of us can be as good as a professional assassin, you know," he said. "If you managed to overpower Moody, a lot of people would look incompetent from your perspective."

"It's not about their magical skills, although Moody was slower than I thought he'd be," I allowed. How much of the old Auror's reputation was simply that, reputation? I knew he'd gotten beaten by Crouch Jr. and Pettigrew shortly before my fourth year had begun, and Pettigrew was a fucking terrible wizard. And Crouch Jr. had no more experience than a 19-year-old child, despite being in his early thirties. It was more than possible that Alastor really wasn't as good as advertised.

"Albus is too unilateral," I continued, "always persuaded that he knows best. He had Fawkes scan each and every one of us without the consent of anyone involved."

Although Fawkes had "exonerated" me, the invasion of my mind stung. I cursed myself for not seeing that coming. I had _known_ Albus was the type of person not to care about the agency of choice for others, yet I had allowed my trust in Lily to override my misgivings.

I went on, "He was certain that Severus Snape was loyal to him for reasons that he wouldn't disclose to anybody else. Had James and Lily died, he would have given their son to a horrific childhood that contributed to his later insanity because he thought it was best. And furthermore, the only reason he felt he needed to have his damnable bird invade everyone's minds to determine their loyalties was because he thought that good people could not change and become evil, so he missed Pettigrew."

"He believes the best of people, he believes in the better side of human nature," Lily started, though she sounded unsure, like she didn't believe it herself.

"That's not an attitude that you should take in wartime. Moody, for everything else he was wrong about, is right that you shouldn't easily trust. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Maybe trust, but also verify," I rebutted.

"But without trust, where are we? If we don't trust, we'll turn on each other. We will be divided, and then we will all die," James protested.

 _"_ _The problem with Potter," Aberforth Dumbledore leaned forward, like a sage imparting great wisdom, "was that because he, himself, would not betray his friends to save his own life, he assumed the same was true of all of his friends to him. That trait was unbearably naïve, and it cost him his life, the life of his wife, and almost his son too."_

"Can you say you were the better off for trusting Pettigrew?" As I spoke, I knew perhaps I was approaching a topic too sensitive, but I felt he needed to hear it.

"Fuck you," he said, fuming.

"James, he may be right-" Lily started.

"Fuck you too," he snapped. He shut his eyes against the onslaught of images in his mind. Wormtail, eagerly helping in the pranks he planned with him in school. Wormtail, applauding at his death-defying Quidditch stunts. Wormtail, agonizing together with him when they, along with Lupin and Sirius Black, were creating a map of the school. Wormtail, transfiguring baby Harry green as they all laughed together.

And another image, Wormtail, kneeling before the Dark Lord as he told him exactly where his next target was hidden. No. It couldn't be. He couldn't let himself accept –

Lily glared murderous daggers at her husband, even as she felt sympathy for him for their shared betrayal by their friend. "I felt his betrayal too-"

God, was _this_ what marriage was like? I felt glad that I was still single. I didn't want to deal with shit like this.

"I will need an official Gringotts account," I interrupted, "as I'm supposed to be your half-sister. 100,000 Galleons will be fine."

"Um, sure," James said, "of course. But don't you have one already, you're a Tur-" he paused, remembering the Vow – "member of an ancient and noble house."

"It will fuel the cover story," I said, already making plans in my head to make a negotiation with Barty Crouch Sr. to have a Hit-Wizard team help me with my assassinations. The Order, regrettably, would be of little help. They may be less likely to be treasonous to me, but I had seen them in action tonight. They looked like squabbling idiots. They spent more time arguing than sharing information, and the members either trusted too easily or were so suspicious of the other members that one would wonder if they were even all on the same side. And while I felt I could trust individual members of the Order, like the Potters and Longbottoms, the fact was that under Dumbledore's purview, there would be no agency of choice.

I needed to kill every last Death Eater by assassination (which the Order was either unable or unwilling to help in), _and_ make sure that Harry and Neville stayed shielded from Trelawney's damnable prophecy (which Albus would be unwilling to allow). I could trust the Potters and Longbottoms with these goals, but not the Order and definitely not the Order with Albus included. I was beginning to feel like I'd made a mistake in befriending members of the organization, when a team of amoral mercenaries was probably a much better way of achieving my goals.

 **A/N: I'm back! Sorry I was gone for so long. Lisa makes some major mistakes in this chapter, placing too much trust in somebody else, and responds after Dumbledore's and Fawkes' questioning by withdrawing almost all of that trust. Lily's admiration and pedestal of Dumbledore has taken a big hit after he violates mind privacy to determine the trustworthiness of the Order members. James struggles with accepting the fact that he might have untrustworthy childhood friends. And Dumbledore believes in Snape's loyalty despite Fawkes' warning to him. Also, a better view of what would really happen to a child who didn't experience love for the majority of his childhood. It is sheer dumb luck and plot devices that were why Harry wasn't insane, evil, hopelessly broken, or all three in canon. Also, an explanation on why allowing Voldemort's discoroporation would have worsened the situation.**

 **Sorry for the writer's block. The next chapter will be out by the 21st at the latest. Stay tuned.**


	8. Ambush

Chapter 8 – Prevention

Ambush

 _ **A/N: I see it was kind of unwise of me to promise another chapter only a week after I recovered from writer's block and wrote Chapter 7. It's kind of rushed. I'll make no such promises from now on (haha).**_

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _"I will need an official Gringotts account," I interrupted, "as I'm supposed to be your half-sister. 100,000 Galleons will be fine." God, was this what marriage was like? I felt glad that I was still single. I didn't want to deal with shit like this._

 _"Um, sure," James said, "of course. But don't you have one already, you're a Tur-" he paused, remembering the Vow – "member of an ancient and noble house."_

 _"It will fuel the cover story," I said, already making plans in my head to make a negotiation with Barty Crouch Sr. to have a Hit-Wizard team help me with my assassinations. The Order, regrettably, would be of little help. They may be less likely to be treasonous to me, but I had seen them in action tonight. They looked like squabbling idiots. They spent more time arguing than sharing information, and the members either trusted too easily or were so suspicious of the other members that one would wonder if they were even all on the same side. And while I felt I could trust individual members of the Order, like the Potters and Longbottoms, the fact was that under Dumbledore's purview, there would be no agency of choice._

 _I needed to kill every last Death Eater by assassination (which the Order was either unable or unwilling to help in), and make sure that Harry and Neville stayed shielded from Trelawney's damnable prophecy (which Albus would be unwilling to allow). I could trust the Potters and Longbottoms with these goals, but not the Order and definitely not the Order with Albus included. I was beginning to feel like I'd made a mistake in befriending members of the organization, when a team of amoral mercenaries was probably a much better way of achieving my goals._

"Your father makes some pretty good suggestions," I admitted to James. "However, I think they can be improved upon. First, you escaped Voldemort's notice for several months because you were under the Fidelius Charm. Therefore, he expects that you'll use the Fidelius again, because few other methods would work so well against him. As your father rightly points out, if you were to cast the Fidelius on Potter Manor he would notice that it disappeared, and he would realize that's where you were hidden. You are right to use his suggestion of an alternate safehouse. But if you _don't_ cast the Fidelius on the Manor, he will know that you're _not_ there, because he's expecting you to use the Charm again and the Manor didn't become invisible from the Fidelius. Therefore he will go looking for the Secret-Keeper, Sirius Black."

James looked queasy at that. He didn't want to leave Sirius in a position where Voldemort might torture it out of him.

"I'm fine with this, honestly," Sirius said. "I won't break like Pettigrew. If Voldemort captures me he'll be no closer to finding the Secret than if he never found me in the first place. And it will keep you safe."

"I recommend a ruse," I continued, rolling my eyes at Sirius' overly Gryffindorish tendencies. "Cast the Fidelius _twice_ , once upon the safehouse your father provided, and once upon Potter Manor. Then hide in the safehouse. Voldemort will notice Potter Manor becoming Unplottable on maps and disappearing from view, and assume you're in the manor. And he will have every reason to assume that, because it's under Fidelius. However, you will be in a _different_ safehouse, that cannot be found because it is also under Fidelius. The Manor will be a decoy. If by chance he manages to find the Manor and destroy it, he won't have killed anyone."

James hesitated. "But my parents' portraits are in here," he exclaimed. "And the portraits of all my ancestors."

"James, we are _dead_ ," Henry Potter's portrait said. "And I have another portrait in Gringotts. Son, sometimes I think you haven't realized that we've died."

"Well," Lily said, "that 'being able to provide advice to your son after you died' thing tends to be a significant difference from the Muggle world."

"Yes," the portrait waved. "But also: I am a _portrait_. I am not even the real Henry Potter. I am a magical painting that was imbued with his personality. Also, it'll keep Harry safe."

"Fuck," James said. "I agree to the plan." No price, not even the destruction of his family ancestral home, was too big to pay for the lives of his wife and son.

I hid a smile. Even dead and an echo of his former self, James' father knew exactly what buttons to press.

"We need to pick Secret-Keepers," Lily said. "I say we use Sirius for the real safehouse, and I think we'll use Lisa for the decoy."

"No," I replied. "You hide Lily in the safehouse and make sure she never exits, and then you make her the Secret-Keeper for the decoy. I could be killed, and then all of you will become Secret-Keepers for the decoy, and the ruse is way less safe. I'm taking a more active role in this war against Voldemort, you know." Also, though I didn't voice it, I had zero faith in my ability to hold up against extensive Cruciatus scrutiny from Bellatrix. The only chance of foiling any potential secret-discoverers would be to take an Unbreakable Vow never to say anything, and then even if I tried, the Vow would kill me. Bellatrix would probably just Cruciate me until I was insensate anyway.

That bitch never took being denied well. I just wish I could have seen her face when Astoria killed her.

"But I am also taking an active role in the war against Voldemort," Sirius said. "If I'm killed, the Secret also becomes less safe. But I think the people who become Secret-Keeper after me-"

"I don't want you to be killed," I replied. "I don't want any of the Secret-Keepers to be killed-"

"That is naïve, we're in a war and people die-" James interrupted.

"-so the obvious solution is to have the Secret-Keeper _never_ move outside the boundaries of a Fideliused location," I interrupted him. "They can't find out the Secret if the Secret-Keeper is also hidden under Fidelius. That's why having Lily house the Secret for the decoy, then having her hide in the real location, would be effective."

"I have a job as an Auror!" Sirius protested. "I cannot be hidden."

"Someone else, who could afford to remain hidden, could do it," said the portrait, which had been silent for some time. "Someone, like a-"

"Potter family house elf," said Dorea Potter's voice, sliding into the portrait. "Honestly, do I have to think of everything around here? The elf takes the Secret and hides in the safehouse, and never moves out of it. To find the Secret, you have to first find the Secret-Keeper, and that's… impossible. Lily takes the decoy Secret – pretty good plan, if I do say so myself – and hides in the same safehouse, and never moves out of it. Until, say, Voldemort dies."

"Great idea," I said, nodding to the portrait. "I think this is the plan that should be used. We should start immediately." I wasn't going to spoil the mood by saying that Voldemort couldn't die. These people needed hope, and I didn't want to take it away from them.

Besides, if my plan for Voldemort worked, his inability to die would become a non-issue. We circumvented his immortality last time, we could do it again. I had something slightly different in mind, because the chances were practically 0% that I could manage to get an extended series of _Crucio_ s off against Voldemort this time around. We didn't have a brother wand to use against him this time, and Ollivander would probably not let me steal it. But I still had a plan that stood a good chance of working.

"Where will you be?" James asked.

"I," I answered, "am going to be in a Muggle apartment. Wizards could never find me there. I look like the image of a proud, pureblood assassin. They won't realize I would hide in the Muggle world."

(line break)

My disadvantages: In raw magical power, a lot of the Death Eaters were more powerful than I was. Also, Lord Voldemort would probably be looking for me and it was possible that he could arrive while I was in the middle of one of my assassination missions. Also, Dumbledore could not know that I was planning this, or he would be trying to stop me too. I didn't know how Crouch or Bagnold felt about this; I hadn't gone to them yet.

My advantages: The Death Eaters didn't know I was coming, although that advantage would probably no longer be there after the first few of them died. They had the advantage in raw magical power _only_. They were stupid as hell, as were many wizards. They had no idea how to use their powers more creatively than just firing spells. They didn't know how to prepare a battlefield properly, like I did. They had no knowledge of strategies of how to stack the deck extensively in their favor before the battle even started, like I did (except through numbers. Ultimately the only way Death Eaters were dangerous were if there were many of them).

I stood in the apartment I had briefly rented – completely legally, of course, with pounds instead of Galleons and everything. I had to avoid attracting suspicion for my stay here. I put Silencing Charms around the room.

I opened my bag – which had an Undetectable Extension Charm on it, very convenient – and dropped the items I had acquired on the table. A Hand of Glory, giving light only to the holder. It would work well with the darkness spells I knew. Sadly, they didn't work as well as Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, but they would work well enough. I dumped out more items: an apple, a cinnamon roll, a Quaffle, a Snitch, a broomstick, and ten stuffed tigers, a can of Muggle lighter fluid, three bottles of alcohol, a bucket of water, ten ping pong balls, and a recipe for Greek fire. The Greek fire, I had stolen from Knockturn Alley. The lighter fluid, the alcohol, the ping pong balls, and the water, I had stolen from Muggle stores. Well, I didn't steal them. I Apparated in, invisibly, cast duplication charms on the items I wanted to take, then stole the duplicates. So I didn't really steal anything. Obviously, I kept the duplicated items invisible when I copied them so no one would notice anything.

Then I dumped some wine glasses on the table. I only took three, but I didn't need more, thanks to the magic of duplication charms.

And finally, I put a rock on the table. Didn't need to buy or steal that one, it was just lying in the road and I picked it up. It looked like a nice rock.

This looked like a pretty innocuous collection, not the sort that you would expect to be able to fell experienced, powerful Death Eaters easily.

But the Death Eaters, and wizards in general, were stupid. They had these great tools like the Switching Spell, the Duplication Charm, the Undetectable Extension Charm, and Transfiguration, and they used them for such boring, mundane purposes. My collection, even with the lighter fluid, the Greek fire, and the alcohol, wouldn't do much damage on its own. However, if I had prep time…

No time to waste. I immediately began casting Switching Spells and Duplication Charms. I made a few more bags and charmed them, too, with Undetectable Extension Charms. I Transfigured some more items. I thought some more and added some password-protected time-delay spells, to be activated on key phrases from me.

It was true a lot of the Death Eaters were more powerful than I, and/or cast spells faster than I did. But they, along with an awful lot of great, powerful wizards, forgot one thing: spells don't equal power. _Knowledge_ was power. It determined how you used your spells, if you used them wisely, if you could stack the deck of a battlefield so heavily in your favor you won before it even began. And knowledge brought about that power. There weren't many wizards who had extensive knowledge of magic, creativity, _and_ Muggle science.

I absently pointed my wand at the lamp, using a spell to safely extract the lightbulb. Then I duplicated it a few times…

(line break)

I had completed my preparations, and now I was sitting inside the Leaky Cauldron. I had just written a letter to Barty Crouch, saying I had experience as a Hit-Wizard and would take on the job of killing Death Eaters for pay.

Truth be told, I'd happily kill Death Eaters for free, but offering to kill them for free would make the Ministry and others too suspicious.

And today, I got my answer.

 _Dear Miss Porter,_

 _I am willing to arrange a meeting where we discuss terms for your Hit-Wizard contract, like amount of money paid per successful capture and which cases you will be assigned to. Meet me in one hour in my office._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Bartemius Crouch_

Per successful _capture?!_ I thought Crouch was one of the hardliners! Well, this was still a better response than I would get from anyone else. I waited about 56 minutes before I walked into the red telephone booth and dialed 6-2-4-4-2.

"State your name and purpose," the voice droned.

"Alissa Porter," I lied cheerfully, "here for a meeting with Crouch about International Cooperation." This system was so stupid, they'd let anyone in for any reason. I looked at the nametag it printed out for me:

 _Alissa Porter_

 _International Cooperator_

Idiots.

A few minutes later, I was in the office. Crouch swiveled around in his chair and looked at me imperiously.

"Hello, Miss Porter," he said. "You have caused quite a stir in the last few days, you and your brother James Potter."

"I have," I said neutrally.

"You have applied for the position of Ministry Hit-Wizard," Crouch continued, "for the job of killing Death Eaters. Now, I don't disapprove of the idea of killing Death Eaters, but a lot of people in the Ministry will not take kindly to it. I would face resistance to this by the Wizengamot, we suspect that many members of the legislature are Death Eater sympathizers at the least – and I would also face resistance by Albus Dumbledore, who would prefer that they are captured alive." He scowled at that, and I did too.

"Therefore, for this to work – and you presumably knew this – we must go behind the backs of Bagnold, the Wizengamot, Bones, Moody, and Dumbledore," he said. "They must not know that this plan is approved by me. Thus, I spoke in veiled, circumspect terms in my answering letter. Unintercepted mail is hard to come by these days. So I did not mention Death Eaters or the fact that you would be killing them.

"The politics of this situation are quite precarious. I unfortunately cannot offer carte blanche or any parchment that says, 'the bearer of this parchment has done what has been done, and is absolved.' The Wizengamot and the Death Eater sympathizers in it will be in enough of an uproar if they notice large numbers of Death Eaters dying in mysterious circumstances, and even more of an uproar if they realize that a top Ministry official has planned it and even produced pieces of parchment for the perpetrator or perpetrators that absolves them for killing the 'victims.' If you and the other members of the Hit-Wizard team put together for this purpose are willing to cause the uproar of large numbers of Death Eaters dying, that is one thing. But I cannot be seen or linked to any role in this. So it is very important that you avoid being caught. I cannot shield you from Azkaban or the Veil if you are caught.

"You _will_ be paid for each Death Eater the team successfully kills, but I cannot be directly linked to the transfer of funds. Therefore, I have set aside an account belonging to one 'John Hunter,' which has 4,000,000 Galleons in it. 100,000 Galleons will be paid to one of the Hit-Wizard team every time a Death Eater is killed, and 50,000 every time one is captured alive. I have made a statement – in gold – which outcome I prefer for the followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Crouch continued. He smiled. It looked, somehow, wrong, on his face. "The cover story, if you are ever caught, is that an insane-with-grief wizard named John Hunter hired a group of contract killers to kill the people who killed his family. But do not get caught, because if you do, I will not be able to shield you from Azkaban or the Veil, which some uptight pureblood supremacists will no doubt push through for you as a punishment if caught. I will now introduce the other members of the Hit-Wizard team that I have set aside for this purpose. _Finite Incantatem_ ," he uttered, and four Disillusionment Charms lifted.

"Miss Porter," Crouch spoke again, "I introduce Kyle Larsen, Alexander Fletcher, Louis Ackermann, and Hailey Worthington. You might notice their names are familiar. Three of them are Aurors. The fourth, Ackermann, is the newest director of Azkaban Prison. I am not able to provide many people for this team. It was hard enough to find Aurors who would agree that the current measures being taken to stop He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the Death Eaters are insufficient, let alone ones who would – at least from the Ministry's legality standpoint – take the matter into their own hands. We are losing this war, and we are losing it badly. You must know this, and James must have known it too, or else he wouldn't have _hired you_ as a contract killer to the Dark Lord for him. An assassin in the family is a pretty taboo subject for a house like the House of Potter, which prides itself on being unquestionably Light. He must have truly realized the danger he was in," he concluded incorrectly.

I twitched. "But I don't hold it against him," Crouch said. "He has realized that there are necessary measures that must be taken. And presumably, you have too, else you wouldn't have answered your brother's call. I have heard only bits and pieces of what transpired on Halloween, but I have heard enough to satisfy me. You four will meet in the home of John MacDonald. He is Ackermann's friend and can be trusted to remain silent about all of this. I have provided Portkeys for this purpose."

(line break)

"That man talks too much," Larsen muttered. He was an old bearded wizard of 80. "He could have explained all of that in three sentences. It's like pureblood lords are required to monologue extensively."

"So you are James Potter's half-sister?" Fletcher inquired curiously. "I read his interview with Skeeter about you. Very interesting. Why come to Britain just now? I've heard you were an assassin. You could have started on the job much earlier, killing Death Eaters by yourself."

"Are you related to Mundungus?" Ackermann asked Fletcher. The Auror twitched. "No," he said, but we could tell he was lying. "Ugh. Yes. He is my cousin."

"I could have killed Death Eaters," I said, "probably not alone. It wouldn't have taken very long before Vol-"

"Shut up," Fletcher hissed, looking around wildly.

"Names have power," Worthington said warningly. Were all wizards this stupidly superstitious? It was a _name_.

Then again, there was a reason that I hadn't revealed my true name to anyone but the Potters and Longbottoms. I acquiesced. "It probably wouldn't have taken very long before _he_ showed up and interrupted me mid-kill, and then I would be dead."

"Then why do you want us with you? The same would probably still be true with four assassins instead of one," Worthington said.

"Yes," I said, "but four people casting Fiendfyre at him can certainly buy enough time for all of us to escape."

"I've read about the encounter that you and your brother had," Ackermann said. "You used Fiendfyre then, and escaped."

"I could easily not have been able to do that," I replied. "If he had taken me by surprise, I would be dead. As it was, I took _him_ by surprise."

"He could easily take all five of us by surprise, and then we'll be dead," Worthington said. I glared. "What did you even sign onto this Hit-Wizard team for, then?!" I demanded. "That asshat could interfere in _any_ of the assassination missions! It's a risk that comes with it. As it is, I can't maintain anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards to prevent him from arriving while also focusing on killing whoever the Death Eater of the day is. If he tracks us directly and comes there without Apparition or Portkey we can shoot Fiendfyre at him, then port out with my bypass method."

"You have a bypass method?" Ackermann asked. "That would have been useful when-" he stopped himself.

"That makes more sense, actually," Larsen said, "setting up the wards to prevent the Dark Lord from arriving. Not a thing you could do so easily, alone. But is that all you needed us for? You could have easily hired a cursebreaker."

"Cursebreakers usually do, well, cursebreaking," I replied. "They're usually not that good at, say, assassinations."

" _We're_ not good at assassinations. We are Aurors," Fletcher said, "our job is officially to 'follow the law,' engage Death Eaters directly, capture them alive, blah blah blah. We wanted someone to take the lead from if it came down to an assassination."

"Well, lucky for you, because Alissa Porter is here to teach you the art of magical assassination," I declared grandiosely.

Larsen snorted. "Why must the great witches and wizards all be completely insane?"

(line break)

 ** _November 8, 1981. 7:00 PM_**

The new DEAD (or was it the _old_ DEAD) made our first move a little more than a week after I had first arrived in this time. We were looking for a target. I was casting the Point Me spell, nonverbally, because I didn't want the other members to panic when they realized that I was looking for Antonin Dolohov, the man who had killed the Prewetts – and many others – and defeated Moody in a duel. Though now that I had met the Moody of this timeline, I didn't consider it that impressive.

I found the house easily enough. It was quite extensively warded, it looked like. However, Dolohov was arrogant enough to assume that no one would try to hunt _him_ down like a dog that he didn't take some of the precautions like the Fidelius.

The parchment I was holding flashed. _How are we going to break down those wards?_ Fletcher, or Alex as I called him now, since we had had time for conversations between the Crouch meeting and now.

 _Wait for it,_ I wrote back. He nodded in acknowledgement.

I wasn't going to waste time trying to break down Dolohov's wards. I was going to use Barty Crouch Jr.'s strategy: lure him out.

I signaled to Worthington – Hailey, now – and she began to cast an illusion. Some Muggle children shimmered into existence. The illusionary children began to move closer to the house. They were singing loudly, " _This is the song that never ends. Yes, it goes on and on my friend, some people started singing it not knowing what it was…_ " I was impressed despite myself. A moving illusion, with each child moving slightly differently, and having them sing despite that? I cast several amplification charms on the illusion. The annoying children's voices grew louder.

It didn't take long for Antonin Dolohov to go to his window, wondering what the hell was going on. His face hardened in a rictus of anger when he saw the Muggle children outside of his window. Kyle charmed two of Dolohov's rubbish bins to grow arms and feet and start dancing around. The first of the trash cans crashed itself into the bricks of Dolohov's home repeatedly, and saying inappropriate words. The second started beatboxing.

Not missing a beat, Hailey changed what the illusionary children were saying.

" _Wow, look! A talking trash can! Did you see that? It must be magic,"_ one of the illusions said.

" _Don't be stupid, Patty. Magic isn't real. It's probably someone dressed up as a trash can."_

Kyle dispelled the trash can's arms and legs. The illusion changed again.

" _That wasn't magic_ ," the second illusionary child declared, huffing in a superior manner. " _Maybe the trash can is some sort of machine-_ "

Antonin Dolohov had had enough. He stalked away from the windows and blasted open his front door. "You Muggle filth," he shouted and cast a flaming purple spell towards one of the illusionary children.

I acted. I threw one of the bags I'd been carrying into the air, and hit it with a _Diffindo_ spell halfway through.

The contents spilled everywhere. Thousands and thousands of Quaffles spilled forth from the contents, all heading for Dolohov.

I loved Undetectable Extension Charms.

It was a shame I couldn't get my hands on any Bludgers, but a few thousand Quaffles trying to smash the Death Eater's face in did pretty well. Before he could raise his wand for a _Finite Incantatem_ to dispel the charms on the Quaffles, I placed another bag on the ground and Banished it at approximately Dolohov's position, intentionally low-powering the spell so it would stop a few inches short of reaching him.

" _Finite Incantatem_!" Dolohov shouted, and the Quaffles stopped in mid-air, then fell to the ground. He smirked, gesturing to the fallen Quaffles, "Is that the best you can do? Come out from where you are hiding-"

The ground in front of him exploded. Dolohov yelled as he was thrown backwards by the explosion. Four different spells came at him while he was still airborne. He Banished himself to the right, avoiding them, but was then hit by Kyle Larsen's electrocution spell. He fell to the ground, gasping and twitching.

I twirled my wand as the Death Eater tried to get to his feet. Dolohov's limbs snapped together, unable to move. I hadn't bothered to speak the spell. It would waste too much time.

I dropped the Disillusionment Charm on myself and the others. Dolohov's eyes widened. I guessed he was probably pretty angry that he had been had by an illusion, but it's not like he could do anything about that now.

"Hello, Antonin," I said. "You've seen better days, haven't you?"

He didn't answer, he couldn't have. He glared as hard as he could, but that look was never very intimidating from someone under the full Body-Bind.

"You are going to tell me where Amycus Carrow is hidden," I said, "in a few moments. _Confundus. Confundus Maximus. Imperio_." Some of the Aurors stiffened in surprise at the use of an Unforgivable Curse on another human, but Dolohov… Dolohov was a Death Eater, a murderer. He wasn't a human.

As I suspected, Dolohov's resistance to the Unforgivable was quite bad. He sang like a canary, not only giving up the Carrows' location, but also that of the Lestranges, Mulciber, Selwyn, Rowle, and Travers.

I cast again. Dolohov slumped to the ground, Stunned and unconscious.

"Lady and gentlemen, all in all, a job well done," I said. "Now we just need to erase the evidence."

"That's a lot of Quaffles," Kyle said, raising an eyebrow. He cast a spell, herding all of the Quaffles into another bag, also with an Undetectable Extension Charm on it. "You know, when Crouch said you were the assassin who was James Potter's half-sister, I expected you to be more direct with these missions."

"I wouldn't be an assassin if I didn't prearrange every battle in my favor before it began," I said, shrugging. "The time for Gryffindorish tactics to deal with Death Eaters is long past."

"I agree," said the old wizard. "And well done, young lady. This type of subterfuge is exactly what we need."

"What house were you in?" I asked curiously, after I managed to stop smiling at the compliment.

"Gryffindor," he grinned. "So if I, a Gryffindor, agree that the time for Gryffindoring is past, you know the time is past."

"Are we going to go after the others tonight? You know, the ones Dolohov mentioned?" Alex asked.

"Of course we are," I replied. "No sense letting them know what's coming."

"Dolohov really didn't see that explosion coming. I thought that was a madman's plan when you explained it," Hailey said, eyes wide. "I had no idea a Switching Spell was that useful."

"You're a Muggleborn and you couldn't think of a devastatingly offensive application for a Switching Spell?" I asked, feeling somewhat incredulous. "I swear, magic rots the brain."

" _You_ have magic," she said, sounding offended.

"I am an exception," I said blithely. "Now, let's go on, we have a few more targets to hit tonight. But first, Alex, you have the Polyjuice?"

"I do," he said.

"Good," I replied. "We'll do spin the bottle to determine who impersonates Dolohov."

The bottle landed on me. "Well, unlucky me, I guess," I groaned. I ripped a fistful of hair out of the Death Eater's head, then cast another spell, decapitating him. Take that. Lisa 2, Antonin 0.

I dumped the hair into the Polyjuice.

"Yuck," I said. "Can I back out of this?"

"Yes!" Alex Fletcher said enthusiastically. "I've never had Polyjuice before! I'm going to impersonate Dolohov, who am I going to kill as him?"

"You're going to go for Travers," I replied, "and you'll be using _this_ communicative mirror," I added, "in case things go sour. If they do, we'll pull you out. Try to kill him with as few witnesses at possible. If it's crowded, don't make the attempt. We want the Death Eaters to fail to catch on-"

"-for as long as possible," he finished. I nodded approvingly. It was great to have people who could follow the plan.

 _A few hours later…_

"I've gotten Travers," said Alex, holding up the now empty glass. "He thought I was Dolohov easily enough, and then he drank the Firewhiskey I offered him."

"And one _Finite_ later, it was actually the rock that it originally was," Hailey said appreciatively. "I do hope you checked to make sure that got him."

"Yes, I'm not dumb," he glared. "I used the head-exploding curse the moment he hit the floor."

"Well, damn," I said. "Now we can't Polyjuice him." He shrugged.

"Very good," Kyle congratulated Alex. "Rowle is dangerous, as is Mulciber, so I think we should all be there for them. Travers is a dumb thug, but he did murder the McKinnons, so you did well not to blow the mission." The Auror flushed in pride. We moved out to look for Mulciber.

(line break)

Mulciber was traveling back to his home. Now, it was time for me to act my part, disguised as a Muggle girl by way of Polyjuice.

"Sir, can you tell me where I am?" I asked, playing up the epitome of innocence as much as I could. "I've gotten lost, like really lost. I was on the way to a friend's house and I think I took a wrong turn-"

"Shh," he said. _"Imperio_." I pretended to let the curse take effect. I allowed a serene expression to cross my face, although it sickened me on the inside to know that the Death Eater gained sadistic pleasure from this. "Come with me," he said, as he led me towards his house. I felt a sense of unease; if I were in Mulciber's home, behind the effect of his wards, there was little I would be able to do to him without getting myself killed too.

Luckily, I make back-up plans, and I had discussed my second one, so they knew what to do. The Imperius Curse was intended to make his victim overly affectionate and attracted to him, so I pretended like it was _too_ effective. I lurched forward and glomped him in a hug with no warning. "You're so _handsome_ ," I said as dreamily as possible. _Good Lord, did my teeth just rot?_

At last, Michael Mulciber began to realize something was wrong. He'd practiced with the Imperius Curse; he knew how to avoid overpowering the spell. To have his victim suddenly be too affectionate, this had to be a trap. He fumbled for his wand to Banish me off him. Too bad for him, he should never have let go of it in the first place.

It was fortunate I wasn't alone. If I had been by myself, I probably would have had to _kill_ Mulciber, and I wouldn't have been able to set up this ridiculous Imperius ruse. Unfortunately, we needed him alive for my 'Voldemort contingency plan.'

An area-effect Stunner filled the air, cast by Ackermann. Mulciber, still fumbling for his wand, did not manage to cast a shield against it. He and I crumpled to the ground at the same time.

(line break)

" _Enervate_ ," said Kyle's voice. I looked around wildly. Ah, we were in John MacDonald's house. We were safe, he was keeping quiet about this operation that Crouch had okayed because he really wanted Death Eaters to die. Okay. I relaxed a little bit.

"You know, I thought you said that the time for Gryffindoring was past," the aged wizard said. "This? This was Gryffindoring."

"Yeah, I know," I said. "But Mulciber would have responded a lot more harshly than that to someone who was actively attacking him. This was, well, fucking terrible, but the easiest way to make him lower his guard."

"What do we do with him?" Ackermann spoke for the first time that evening. He glared at Mulciber's unconscious form in disgust. "We certainly can't let him live."

"I have plans for Mulciber. The man would never think to check his own mind for being Obliviated."

I sat up, downed some Polyjuice antidote, and changed back to my normal form. " _Enervate. Petrificus Totalus_." Mulciber became conscious, but was unable to move.

I turned to the others. "We are going to force Mulciber to swear an Unbreakable Vow."

There was silence for a moment. Then Kyle said, " _Why_. Why not just kill him immediately? I mean sure, if you make him swear an Unbreakable Vow never to use the Imperius again, then make him forget he did it, he'll probably accidentally kill himself-"

"-and that would be funny as hell," Ackermann said, eyes alight with dark amusement. "I love this idea."

"-but then people would examine the body and realize he was killed by the Vow. That could lead to suspicion coming back to us."

"If I wanted to just act against Mulciber, I'd kill him," I glared at the Death Eater. "He disgusts me in every way that matters. Hell, I think he even disgusts some of the Death Eaters. No, he'll stay alive because we need to see if 'Operation 460' can kill the Dark Lord. Well, rather, by definition, 460 couldn't _kill_ him, but it might render him catatonic."

The other magicians' eyes widened in understanding. "And if that works, we've basically ended the war," Kyle said. "How are you not Minister, with those kinds of ideas?"

"A politician has to _avoid_ killing people he hates," I replied. "I couldn't be Minister. _Obliviate_ ," I said, directing my wand at Mulciber so he wouldn't remember this most recent conversation. Or Imperiusing someone he thought was a Muggle girl to come with him to his house. For all he knew, there was a gap in his memory and he suddenly woke up in the custody of five assassins. _"Incarcerous_. All right, Michael, here's the deal. You do _exactly_ as we say. And we, in return, will not kill you. Do not try to betray us, or Alex here will take your head off." Alex nodded for emphasis, before conjuring several snakes to crawl on Mulciber. They hissed at him. They were not venomous, but he didn't know that.

The Death Eater shivered in terror.

"Kyle, Hailey, you go out and deal with Rowle. As far as the world knows, Travers went home – Alex took the care to Transfigure the corpse into a dog bone, and as for Dolohov, Alex recently Polyjuiced as him, so people will think he's alive too. Rowle is a big, hulking wizard so a lot of spells, like Stunners, will just rebound off of him."

"That's why we should deal with him together," the old wizard protested. "Unless you can do the Transfiguration trick that worked with Travers…"

"Yes," I nodded, pleased. "That's exactly like it. Rowle can tank most spells, but even he can't survive a time-delayed explosive spell going off inside his own mouth. The man has a weakness for cinnamon rolls. He loves eating them." I tossed Larsen one such roll. "Just talk pureblood supremacist language nonsense at him. Eat a real – of course untrapped – roll of your own so he gets envious. I know how his personality works. The password for the explosion is 'Troughton.' It will go off in less than half a second. If it doesn't take him down, here is a list of _other_ spells that Rowle could not ignore. Don't try to render him unconscious before making the kill; there is no benefit to pretending he's alive. _Do_ try to disappear his body so no one knows if he's alive. On my list, I recommend _Conjunctivus, Flamma Incendio, Explodere caputem,_ and the Nightmare Curse. I trust you'll take all the appropriate precautions."

"How? How could you possibly know how his personality works?" Auror Worthington demanded. "Have you met him?"

"Yes," I replied.

"You're James Potter's half-sister who didn't come back to Britain for many years," she pressed on. "How could you have met him?"

"I was in disguise, and scouting out my targets to see what I needed in order to assassinate them," I lied cheerfully.

"What about Selwyn and the Lestranges?" Alex asked. He'd Stunned Mulciber again as we seemed to be having a discussion about who to go after next instead of making Mulciber swear the Vow.

"We don't go after Selwyn just yet. He hangs around the Dark Lord and the Lestranges too often, it would be too dangerous to try to make an assassination attempt just yet. Plus, we are operating extrajudicially. The public doesn't view Selwyn as a wanted Death Eater like they do Dolohov or the Lestranges," Kyle said. "As for the Lestranges, that is self-explanatory. I think with a lot of prep time, we could go after them, but we aren't prepared for them at the moment." He sighed. "I think we should have Miss Porter be the one to whom the Unbreakable Vow is made to, and Mr. Fletcher to be the Bonder. Actually, I'm picking at random. But every second that passes makes it more likely that someone is going to notice Mulciber has disappeared."

"Shit, you're right," I said. "We've wasted enough time, and as we aren't going after Selwyn and the Lestranges just yet… _Ennervate_. Hello, Michael. You're a disgusting piece of – sorry, that isn't helpful. You are going to swear an Unbreakable Vow to uphold these terms, and we, in return, will not kill you. In case you think we're bluffing, Alex's venomous snakes here beg to differ." I stepped back, motioning to Larsen. "I think you should be the Bonder, actually," I said. Luckily, he agreed readily enough. I didn't want it to become known that James' name for me was totally fake.

The old wizard spoke. "Do you, Michael Mulciber, swear to me, Kyle Larsen, never to be under the _Legilimens_ spell by the Dark Lord, _Voldemort-_ " he twitched, "for a duration of more than half a second, for the rest of your life?"

"I do," the Death Eater said. Flames shot forward and wrapped themselves around Larsen's and Mulciber's hands, signifying that the Vow had taken effect.

"Your next vow," I began, "is – well, you don't have a next vow."

"Make him swear not to use the Imperius," Ackermann growled.

"He won't remember this conversation," I said. "I don't want him to accidentally kill himself by casting the Imperius before he can find his way back to Voldemort and unwittingly execute 460. So we… hmm. I guess we keep him captive for now. We release him back directly to Voldemort after maybe a couple of weeks, then see if 460 is successful. We'll need to make Voldemort more likely and more willing to interrogate him, of course. So some other Death Eaters will have to mysteriously die between now and then. I'm not sure how best to kill the Lestranges, though. Any help on that score would be much appreciated. As for Michael… well we can't let him go, what about the innocents he'd hurt between now and then. Can't kill him. Hailey, you recently came into possession of some Draught of Living Death. Just force-feed it to him or something. After that's done, we can hide him in some magical trunk or something – I think Warden Ackermann's friend John has one. Guys, this was a good haul for tonight."

"Tomorrow?" Ackermann demanded. He wanted revenge as soon as possible.

"Carrows, I think."

"I hate it, but we can't go after the Malfoys, Nott, Avery, Crabbe, Goyle, etc. just yet," Fletcher said glumly. "We'd draw too much scrutiny as they haven't been officially tied to anything. As far as the British Wizarding World is concerned, they are not Death Eaters."

I scowled. "We could kidnap them? Draught of Living Death them? Dose them to the gills with Veritaserum and make them confess everything on the live Wizarding Wireless? Unfortunately, I think I need more resources. Too often they hide behind the secure wards of their ancestral manors. Not all of the Death Eaters will be like Dolohov and leave the safety of their own wards. Fuck," I swore. "We may need to get in contact with cursebreakers after all. Also, you two still have Rowle to assassinate tonight. When you've done that, report back to me. Then we'll call it a night." Larsen and Worthington nodded and started out the door. They knew where he was hidden, from Dolohov's impromptu interrogation.

(line break)

 ** _November 10, 1981, 10:00 AM_**

Voldemort paced around the room in anger and irritation. None of the Death Eaters could see him, which was good because it would not do for them to see their master so agitated.

Dolohov, Travers, and Rowle were dead. And Amycus Carrow was dead too. He confirmed their deaths through the Dark Mark. Someone was going around killing the Death Eaters. Potter's blasted half-sister was at work again.

Voldemort had tried using Divination to determine the blasted witch's location. But he kept getting bad results. Either null, or locations that weren't even in Britain, or two locations at once. He didn't even get consistently bad results. He knew that the Divination rituals worked, but somehow they weren't working for him. And Potter had disappeared from view again, this time with a new Secret-Keeper. He knew where, because Potter Manor had disappeared from the map and become invisible. Still, he wouldn't like to go in blind, to an assault where he could not even see his targets because they were hidden by Fidelius.

Voldemort came to the realization that his Death Eaters may not be able to disengage if they saw the assassin. He would have to give new orders, to activate their Dark Marks so he would come and hopefully interfere. He was frustrated at having to deal with this. He wanted to find Potter and his family again so he could kill them and avert the prophecy, but they had hidden again. And he didn't think he could wait for his Death Eaters to find Pettigrew, or wait while the assassin killed more and more of his Death Eaters. Well, the new orders would take care of that. Sooner or later, he'd be able to personally intervene and thwart one of the assassination missions. Soon, the fear generated by the assassin would be past. And he knew where Potter _was_ , even though he'd be frustrated by not being able to see him, or his wife, or his son.

He activated the Dark Mark, calling another meeting.

(line break)

Bartemius Crouch, Sr. was very happy. He had gotten excellent reports back from Porter and the four magicians that he had assigned to help with this mission. He had been able to confirm by use of Divination and the Medallis Veritas that Dolohov, Travers, and Rowle were dead. Luckily, the perpetrators had not been caught yet. He hoped it would stay that way.

He'd made a big risk, having three Aurors and one Azkaban Warden with little assassination skills on their own being assigned as part of the team to help Potter's half-sister. But he had faith in her abilities and approved of how she and her brother had handled the Dark Lord. She didn't ask for that much, just money, which he could easily give under a fake account, and some helpers to avoid being caught by the Dark Lord alone. Both were quite easy to accomplish. And the helpers, who hadn't had much experience before, were rapidly gaining the experience needed to carry out the missions quickly and stealthily. Barty couldn't believe his luck, though, that the girl would come to _him_ with this offer. This could be what could win the war for him. He'd been pushing for more lethal measures for the Aurors for years but been blocked by the Wizengamot at every turn. This could be what could turn the tide against the Death Eaters. It was just a shame that he could not publicly take credit for it and that he had to do this in backdoor, clandestine operations.

He did wish Potter's sister had been more circumspect with that letter. It could easily have been intercepted, and with the Wizengamot constantly blocking his measures, that would have been disastrous for him. He regretted having to assign four wizards with few assassination skills on their own to the team, but he was already under enough scrutiny for authorizing the use of the Unforgivables to the Aurors. It was already a big enough risk he had taken by allowing _one_ assassin/Hit-Wizard into the Ministry for a private meeting. Five trained Hit-Wizards would surely not escape notice. So he gambled that the four that he picked would want to learn how to kill Death Eaters as hard and as fast as possible, to graduate from no experience to practical assassination experience. That was pretty easy; Larsen was a 'blood traitor,' and Ackermann, Worthington, and Fletcher all had Muggle parents. They had all lost someone to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

(line break)

"Have you heard from Lisa in the past few days?" Lily asked James as she rocked baby Harry to sleep.

"No," James replied. "I wonder what she's doing now?"

"Assassinating people, maybe," Sirius laughed. James laughed too. "Ahaha, that was a good – wait," he said, frowning. "Wait a minute."

 _A few miles away, the glass of water in Alecto Carrow's hand disappeared, swapping itself with a glass of lighter fluid. Before she could respond to this unexpected development, the new glass's time-delayed explosive spell activated. Reeling from that quite sizable explosion and unable to defend herself, Alecto did not see the Reductor Curse that hit her in the chest, nor the Killing Curse that hit her in the face._

 _This body, too, was Transfigured into a dog bone. "She's not very intelligent," I commented. "She fell for the same trick as her brother did."_

 _God, I loved Switching Spells. And time-delayed spells. And the fact that Death Eaters weren't very imaginative. I knew it would work. If the Death Eaters had been so stupid to fail to protect themselves against these methods almost 20 years in the future, they would certainly be too stupid now._

(line break)

 ** _November 11, 1981, 11:24 AM_**

"I've received another report from Severus," Dumbledore confided to Alastor Moody. "Some Death Eaters have gone missing. Dolohov was last seen staggering into that illegal bar that Travers has been running. He and Travers have not been seen for the past few days. Neither of them turned up to the most recent Death Eater meeting. Also, Rowle, the Carrows, and Mulciber have not appeared either."

Moody frowned. "There are several possibilities at play here. One is that those Death Eaters are lying low for the moment and that Voldemort is faking the panic that he displayed in the meeting. He knew Snape would tell you about this, so the idea is you will be driven into making the assumption that those Death Eaters are out of play. This will leave you vulnerable to some strike that, he hopes, you will not see coming."

"And the second possibility?" Dumbledore asked, although he knew and feared what it was already.

"Someone is going around killing all of them," the old Auror said. "Now, it could be Potter's half-sister, or it could be some totally new player, but that's the other possibility. They're doing it in a sneaky way, by not leaving the bodies behind so we have doubts about whether they are alive or dead. Possibility number three: those Death Eaters defected because they believe they found some way to get the upper hand on their master, so they betrayed him. Possibility number four: Some third party has kidnapped them for their own purposes. Based on the information we have available, the second possibility is most likely, particularly with the introduction of an assassin into the conflict. Hmm… but I thought she was too flashy for this quiet disappearance thing that's going on."

"We are a nation of laws," Albus replied. "I can see the rage that someone would have at the Death Eaters that they would choose to end their lives, but they should be caught lawfully, tried, and sentenced."

"Porter was spotted walking into the office of Bartemius Crouch, Sr.," the Head Auror disclosed. "They talked for about twenty minutes. Crouch claims that they were discussing the whereabouts of Fenrir Greyback." He stared directly at the Headmaster. "I don't think so. Someone like her doesn't obey conventional rules. And if Crouch was discussing what I think he _really_ was discussing, he isn't obeying the conventional rules either."

"I don't like it," Dumbledore replied. "The Death Eaters should be caught and tried, lawfully, on those charges. If it comes out that there are other circumstances like duress-"

"Damn it, Albus!" Moody shouted at him, slamming his fist on the table. "What has trying to do things _lawfully_ ever done for someone? I'm as suspicious of her as you are, but if James had tried to be above-board and perfectly legal about things and _not_ hire his illegal contract killer of a sister, he would be _dead_! His wife would be dead! His son would be dead! That is where your tiptoeing around the issues would bring you! Do you understand how unbelievably foolish your pushback against authorizing lethal force to Death Eaters is, for both the Order and the Ministry? How are people supposed to defend their families if they cannot kill in self-defense?! We are at _war_ , against killers, not in a hunt for common criminal money embezzlers."

"Well, you are entitled to your own opinion, of course," Albus replied. "I, however, maintain my disagreement with this. We do try to hold ourselves to a higher standard than our enemies. And James has risked legal and illegal action against him by this stunt with the assassin-"

"But at least he is alive to do so," Moody interrupted.

(line break)

 ** _November 11, 7:24 PM_**

Lord Voldemort was out of patience. He had come no closer to catching the assassin who had been killing the Death Eaters. After he had called the meeting of the Death Eaters and given them new orders to alert him if they were unable to disengage, there had been no further attacks. He frowned. Either they had stopped (unlikely), or they were winding up for something big.

He cursed that prophecy. Sure, the one with the power to finish _him_ was likely young Harry Potter, but that didn't mean that there weren't other threats to the organization. And his power would be much reduced if all of his Death Eaters died.

His Death Eaters had not been very successful in finding Pettigrew. Severus had said the Order and Ministry were also looking, but Voldemort doubted that. Pettigrew had to have been in on James Potter's ruse, there was no way he wasn't somewhere safely hidden. If Potter was laying another trap, Pettigrew would be the go-to wizard to confirm that. When he found the wizard again, he would break the Obliviation Charms on him to see what Potter's true plan was this time.

Unfortunately, he could not wait for the wizard to be found, or let the assassin and her allies – if she had any – keep bleeding the Death Eaters dry. If she struck at Bellatrix that would be a huge blow to him.

There was one option, though. To deliver a warning. _Back off me and mine_. She was attacking him by proxy. That was fine. He could do that, too. He'd kill her brother and her family, since he didn't know where she was.

He looked at the magical map he had in his hands. Of course, the highly conspicuous location of Potter Manor had recently disappeared. Potter had decided to hide in there. Perhaps he had his assassin sister lying in wait to ambush him again, if Lord Voldemort somehow found the location. Now, the Secret had not been disclosed to him yet, so Potter would not be expecting an attack before the Secret had been betrayed –

 _He's a Gryffindor, but also a Slytherin_.

Well, fine. The assassin's ambush had only been so effective because he had personally come through the front door and entered the house itself. This wasn't as much an option now – with Fidelius, he couldn't even see anything, and he sure as hell wasn't going to enter a battlefield where he couldn't see his enemies but they could see him if he could choose to avoid that disadvantage. Anyways, it didn't matter. The Manor was invisible, but he knew approximately where it was. And he didn't need to have an exact location when you had an area-effect spell that could destroy everything in the radius.

He Apparated to a location in close proximity to the invisible building. He started casting the required Anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards. He didn't want them escaping on him now.

Then he raised the yew wand once more, and spoke, _"Fiendfyre_."

He knew that the cursed magic was doing its job when the fire encountered some resistance in the form of what was likely the invisible building. That resistance didn't hold up for long and soon the fire closed in. As the Fideliused location was being destroyed, the Fidelius Charm itself ceased to work properly and the building, now aflame, came into full view. And the anti-transport wards were up, so there was no way Potter or his blasted prophecy child spawn would escape.

And then everything went completely wrong.

 _ **A/N: Well, this was kind of hasty, but here I cover how wizards are stupid. Switching Spells are truly devastating offensive weapons and somehow wizards don't think to use them? Time-delayed explosive spells are not canon, but I see no reason for them not to exist. Crouch displays subterfuge, and Lord Voldemort has just triggered a trap for himself. The part I'm most unsatisfied with is the one where the other members of the new DEAD are not professionally trained assassins, but well, Crouch is under a lot of scrutiny in this fic through Wizengamot obstruction of him. He could barely get away with having a conversation with one.**_

 _ **I haven't explained what precisely 'Operation 460' is. For anyone confused about it, I'll explain later.**_


	9. Ambush (Part II) and Explanations

Chapter 9 – Prevention

Ambush (Part II) and Explanations

 ** _Note: Writing dialogue to be in accordance with Hagrid's accent was too tiresome, so I didn't._**

 _Previously on Prevention…_

 _He Apparated to a location in close proximity to the invisible building. He started casting the required Anti-Apparition and anti-Portkey wards. He didn't want them escaping on him now._

 _Then he raised the yew wand once more, and spoke, "Fiendfyre."_

 _He knew that the cursed magic was doing its job when the fire encountered some resistance in the form of what was likely the invisible building. That resistance didn't hold up for long and soon the fire closed in. As the Fideliused location was being destroyed, the Fidelius Charm itself ceased to work properly and the building, now aflame, came into full view. And the anti-transport wards were up, so there was no way Potter or his blasted prophecy child spawn would escape._

 _And then everything went completely wrong._

(line break)

 ** _Ministry of Magic_**

 ** _November 10, 9:00 PM (the day before Dumbledore's conversation with Moody, and Voldemort's attack on Potter Manor)_**

"I saw that witch leaving your office, about three days ago," Moody said to Barty Crouch, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Mmmhmm," Crouch said noncommittally. "What of it?"

"James Potter's sister. The assassin," Moody elaborated, hoping Crouch would also elaborate.

Crouch inclined his head in acknowledgement, but did not immediately answer. Alastor began to lose patience.

"What were the two of you discussing?"

"Ministry business," Barty replied. "More specifically, we were talking about the rather quite worrying escapades of Fenrir Greyback. That beast has been going around for so long and he's eluded the Aurors, someone's got to stop him. I have warned her of all the necessary precautions so she knows to bring lots of silver. There has been a bounty on Greyback's head for ages, she stopped by to know what she could do to collect it. That's all. I daresay he may turn up dead soon enough."

"It's been three days," Moody said, "since she was in your office."

"Yes," said Barty.

"She is dangerous enough to fight Voldemort himself, on what must have been less than ten minutes' notice between the Secret-Keeper's betrayal and the Dark Lord's own, personal arrival at Potter's location."

"Yes."

"And it has been three days and Fenrir Greyback is still alive."

"What can I say?" Crouch spread his hands. "These things take time, after all. Maybe he's hiding, it is harder to kill someone who cannot be found."

"Three valued members of Scrimgeour's Auror corps are missing. They have not reported in for three days," Moody cut in with another one of his observations.

"All of the Aurors and the heads of their squads report to me. Rufus need not concern himself with such things," Crouch said sternly. "The three of them came to me complaining that they seemed to be coming down with the flu. It seemed quite serious. Two of them even vomited a few times. I had to clean off my couch. Twice. I decided it was best if they took a break for the time being. If Rufus bothered reading the official Ministry missives I send him more than once a month, he would have realized this too."

"Kyle Larsen is a very healthy man despite his age and has never taken ill in his life."

"Well, there is a first time for everything. He certainly did not look like he was faking his illness when he reported he would need to take an absence for a few days."

"Arthur Weasley reports that his coworker John MacDonald has not been seen in the past two days."

"Arthur is not very observant. John even provided an official excuse. He is staying at his home to help care for his newborn child. I understand he wants to take a more personal role in parenthood. Well, I wish him the best of luck."

"You don't seem the type of person who would accept the kind of excuse that would allow a man to take off work to care for his family. After all, you didn't yourself," Moody said.

"John does not work in _my_ department. He works in Edgecombe's department. Whether or not I am inclined to accept his reasons or not, as he does not work in my department, it does not matter to me one way or the other."

"Edgecombe isn't the type of person who would accept this as a reason either," Moody pressed.

"Edgecombe and I have not spoken very frequently; I wouldn't know," Crouch answered. "Maybe she's had a change of heart recently. Alastor, I don't know why you persist in this unusual line of questioning. I do not understand what you are trying to get at."

Auror Moody stared at Mr. Crouch for one long, yet brief, moment. He considered pressing the issue further, asking Crouch directly if he had hired the girl to knock off Death Eaters behind the scenes. But it wouldn't get anywhere, and Barty Crouch, as a politician, was a skilled liar. Alastor would check the veracity of the story Crouch had provided to see if it held up under scrutiny, but the other wizard was a slippery man. He didn't expect to turn up anything substantial.

"No," he said finally. "I have nothing further to inquire."

(line break)

 ** _November 10, 1981, 10:00 PM_**

 ** _Hagrid's hut_**

There was a knock on the door of the hut.

"Come in!" Hagrid called out.

The door opened, and Filius Flitwick stepped inside. Hagrid shut the door.

"Professor?" Hagrid exclaimed. "You're welcome here, of course, but why did you come here?"

"I received a letter, talking about some critically important information," the Charms Professor answered, also seeming confused.

I threw off the Disillusionment Charm. "Hello, everyone," I said. I knew this persuasion thing could be difficult, but I was sure I could just play up the grandiosity as much as possible and it would work.

"How'd you get in here?" Hagrid demanded. "Fang should've-"

"Notice-me-not charms are wonderful things," I said. "I'm here because I made a promise to James Potter, that I would never stop protecting him, Lily, and Harry for as long as any of us were alive. And I need your help. But the plan is very, very dangerous, and could potentially cost us our lives. But I believe it will work."

Flitwick and Hagrid stared at me curiously.

"…You have my attention," Flitwick allowed. "But if what you suggest is too dangerous to us, I may not be involved."

"I'm in," Hagrid said immediately, having forgotten all about the home intrusion. "Dangerous it may be, but I'm not afraid of the danger. Any chance to stick it to You-Know-Who, or defend bright young wizards like James and Lily and their baby from him – I'll take it." He seemed to glare at Flitwick for even dreaming of hesitating. The professor, to his credit, bore the stare without flinching.

"I'm a schoolteacher, Rubeus. If I'm linked to any of this, the students may be put in greater danger."

"The students are _already_ in danger," I replied. "Remember _this_ young man?" I asked, drawing out a photograph. "A bright young wizard, at the top of his class, excellent in Charms, received the first perfect score on the Charms NEWT in history. And he was murdered by Lucius Malfoy for being the son of a Muggle – not that anyone can prove it. Or _this_ pair of students" – another photograph – "always with smiles on their faces as they tackled any problem, no matter how insurmountable it seemed to them? They got murdered by Travers, not even last month. Or _this_ pair of pranksters? You have Antonin Dolohov to thank for the fact that they are no longer among the living. This war has already spilled over into Hogwarts' walls, and will-"

"ENOUGH!" Flitwick shouted, so loud it startled even Hagrid. Then he sighed. "I know all of that is true," he said, "but you did not have to put it like _that_."

"Lass's got a point, though," Hagrid said. "We're in danger from You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters no matter what. I don't want to open up a newspaper and find out that more and more people have died every day. So, what's your plan?"

"We're going to ambush him," I replied.

" _You said the time for Gryffindoring was past. This? This is Gryffindoring_ ," Larsen's voice spoke in my mind. I shook off my doubts. A plan like mine would work because it had enjoyed considerable success in my past – the future – ugh.

At this, Hagrid started, looking aghast and fearful, his earlier enthusiasm towards attacking Voldemort gone.

"AMBUSH HIM?! AMBUSH _HIM?!_ AMBUSH _YOU-KNOW-WHO_? Are you insane!?"

Flitwick seemed in agreement. "All right, I'm out," he said. He and Hagrid turned and made to leave (even though it was Hagrid's own house), until I said: "I did it before, and it is the only reason that the Potters are still alive."

Slowly, Flitwick and Hagrid turned back around.

"That's… true," Flitwick admitted, "but can you do it a second time?"

"Yes, but I cannot do it alone. I was alone last time, and it did work, but there was an insane amount of luck involved. Three people will be better than one."

"Still, it's You-Know-Who," Hagrid said.

"You're talking to someone who blew fire in his face not even two weeks ago," I replied. "And between James and I, we actually managed to hurt him. James even broke some ribs. And if it bleeds…"

"It can die," Flitwick and Hagrid finished. Hagrid looked a lot more eager about this idea now.

"This seems pretty risky," Flitwick said. "Yes, You-Know-Who can be wounded, but there's a huge difference between wounding him and killing him."

"I know of ways that can kill him," I said, "I'm sure of it. However, I will need someone to take his attention, so that his focus is not on me."

"I'll need you to explain this plan in more detail. _How exactly_ are you planning to ambush him, and why are you so sure it would work?"

(line break)

 ** _Meanwhile…_**

 _"_ _Assassinating people, maybe," Sirius laughed. James laughed too. "Ahaha, that was a good – wait. Wait a minute."_

" _Point Me_ ," he muttered. "Ugh, I'm not getting enough from this spell."

"I'm trying some other methods," Sirius replied, "now, let's see… aha! Hagrid's… hut?" he seemed confused.

"Nothing to worry about," Lily said. "She's not assassinating him, he's not a Death Eater and she took that Unbreakable Vow."

"Yeah," James said, "but she hates Professor Dumbledore and you know how Hagrid reacts to people who hate Dumbledore."

"I – oh, shit," Lily said. "I think she knows that? And would be smart enough not to mention that?" She sounded uncertain.

"This probably won't end well," James predicted, "I think we should go to break up any fights that might occur."

"James, you and Lily cannot leave this house," Sirius commanded. "You are under Fidelius, the moment you step out of it, Voldemort could find you. And then he could use you to get to the rest of the family."

"Voldemort could find you, assume you are the Secret-Keeper, and then try to torture it out of you," James argued.

"I'm an Auror, Prongs. I literally can't stay in here all day. Besides, even if you go to Hogwarts there is a chance that Voldemort's agents are watching. They'll jump at the chance to nab you at a time that you are not behind these walls. Hogwarts may have the best ward protections upon its entrances and walls and stuff, but remember, Voldemort doesn't even know you're here. He thinks you're in Potter Manor. Don't you dare jeopardize that. I'm the one who should go, if it turns violent. Besides, _Portus_ ," Sirius finished, making a Portkey.

"Padfoot!" James and Lily exclaimed, him gleefully and her reproachingly. "That's illegal!"

"An unauthorized Portkey," James said. "Okay, you've thought this through better than you normally do."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sirius demanded, but he was laughing too. "Okay, I'm going."

(line break)

"Okay, so you've explained how exactly you plan to ambush him. Okay, fake location, Undetectable Extension bombardment, Hand of Glory, Switching Spells, Protean-Charmed Galleons," Flitwick tallied off some of the tactics that were going to be used. "And you'll be invisible. But why are you so sure this will work?"

"You-Know-Who is brilliant, but he is arrogant," I replied. "He is so reliant on pure power to win – and if you're as powerful as him, that's actually a valid strategy. However, that means that he doesn't recognize the validity of other approaches to attacking him. He actually didn't see it coming when James turned into a stag last Halloween and tried to gore him. The chances are good that he won't see most of this coming either. And-"

The door opened again, flung open by Sirius. I tensed. I hoped he had not found out about the deal I'd made with Barty Crouch, or that he was here to question me about having assassinated people. Actually, why was he here?

"Uh, hello," I said eloquently. "Hello, Sirius."

"Mister Black, it is rude to come in without knocking first," Flitwick said. Sirius shrugged, completely unashamed.

"I was just heading over here to visit Hagrid, my very favorite groundskeeper," Sirius said. "But I found out he had visitors. You were discussing _something_ , and I want in."

"How much did you hear," I said slowly.

"Absolutely nothing. _Muffliato_ was up, you know," he said. I sighed. "We were discussing You-Know-Who's vulnerability to unconventional tactics, and the possibility of laying a trap for him. You know about the fake location, of course. There are also these methods of being able to come on the scene the moment that he arrives and takes the bait."

"I have some hesitation about this plan," Flitwick said doubtfully. "Of course, we know that You-Know-Who's arrogance blinds himself to other tactics like physical brawling and some of the other ones you've described, but how can you be _that sure_ that he will be vulnerable to the rest of the methods you've described?"

 _Because he fell for them before. Because the Voldemort of 1981, no matter how dangerous and powerful, was still less dangerous than the Voldemort of more than 20 years later who had had the opportunity to learn from the mistakes he made earlier, and think creatively. And the Voldemort of over 20 years later_ _ **still**_ _fell for a trap that we set for him, which cost him his mind._

"Call it an understanding of the enemy," I said vaguely. "I know what kinds of spells he does and does not use, what tactics he likes to rely upon. And the thing is, he still exclusively relies on pure power to win. He does not think about strategy, unless it's in the vein of directing his Death Eaters and troops to various locations. His flaw is hubris. He doesn't think about more creative ways to defend himself. His view is that his power trumps everything else, in every circumstance. But if that were true, the Longbottoms would not have survived him three times, the Potters would not have survived him four. And if it were true, I could not have rescued James Potter from his grasp last Halloween, and James' insane stag charge would have done absolutely nothing. Oh, sure, Voldemort is creative with his spells and stuff, but he forgot: spells don't equal power, not in themselves. And I surprised him once. I can kill him" – well, I couldn't kill him, could I? But if this went right, I could discorporate him from his body, and that would be good enough for the time being – "but I will need someone else to take his attention."

"I would normally be pretty reluctant to participate in something like this," Flitwick said. "Your plan, as presented with just that synopsis, just that basic rundown, seemed poorly thought-out. However, you then described the exact methods that you were going to use, and exactly why you felt they were likely to work, including a careful evaluation of his personality profile. And you have the added evidence of having had some success with it in the past. You seemed to have actually _researched_." Of _course_ that would be what won over the Head of Ravenclaw House. I giggled inwardly. "It will be interesting to see where this goes, but I must remind you, this _is_ You-Know-Who. Nothing works twice against such a wizard. And maybe he is overreliant on being more powerful than any other wizard but Dumbledore, but it has worked pretty well for him up to this point. This plan could easily fail, and all of us to die with it.

"But I'm in anyway. It's a good plan, and even if it fails I have an interest now in seeing its architect survive. You remind me a lot of Lily and some of my other favorites, taking approaches to magic that are not rooted in the rigidity of tradition, that use new thought processes. However, in case it does go sour… I suggest we have a house-elf to pull us out in case it fails."

My palm met my face. "Why did I not think of that?" I'd just spent ten minutes, about how Voldemort didn't realize the reliability of other approaches to magic, or even Muggle approaches, but I was still stuck in the rut of focusing exclusively on what _humans_ could do. I felt embarrassed, that I'd made a mistake similar to his.

"He's got those anti-transport spells, though," Hagrid said.

"Elves outright ignore those. But You-Know-Who wouldn't know that, because he doesn't pay attention to much fields outside of wizarding magic," the professor explained. "Even when he was in school, he didn't display interest in the abilities and power of the other magical races." And I hadn't either. That was annoying, but that was why three or four minds were better than one.

Then I picked up on part of Flitwick's phrasing.

"Hmm. So you know, then," I realized.

"Know what?"

"That he was once Tom Marvolo Riddle? Not common knowledge," I replied.

"I had never heard of this," Sirius said, looking shocked. "Voldemort was… not a pureblood?"

"No," I sighed, "he was not. And that makes everything about the war he's waging that much more confusing."

"How would you know that, though?" Hagrid. "You didn't spend that much time here. James said you weren't even in Britain until very recently."

"I do my homework." This answer did not seem to alleviate Hagrid's confusion. Professor Flitwick, however, laughed. Then he asked another question, one that I really should have seen coming, given that he was the Head of Ravenclaw House.

"So, does Albus know about this?"

I sighed again. "No, he does not. I decided it would be best if he didn't know that this was being planned."

Hagrid looked thunderous. "What? You were in the Order meeting, Frank and Alice brought you there. And you want to keep this secret from everyone else in the Order and even Dumbledore? He could probably help tons with this plan."

"This plan will involve _killing_ You-Know-Who. Killing, incidentally, is not in Dumbledore's repertoire," I said, fishing for a reason to exclude Dumbledore that wouldn't enrage Hagrid. Sirius looked very tense, suddenly. "And make no mistake, we will need to kill You-Know-Who."

"You could still tell him about it, and he could help with parts of the plan. Plus, Mad-Eye and I, and Minerva and Aberforth, and even the Potters and the Longbottoms – well, all of us in this room, too – have killed before, and Professor Dumbledore had us all in the Order of the Phoenix. I think he understands that some wizards and witches can't be taken alive," Hagrid rebutted. I sat back, thinking. Hagrid's argument was _good_ , actually. I couldn't think of good ways to rebut it without incurring his anger that I was insulting the Headmaster.

"The less people that know about it, the better. If Albus doesn't know and this operation totally fails, he can truthfully say he has no idea what happened," I said. "I don't think he could _lie_ his way through a Ministry inquest on whether he was involved in an illegal operation." Actually, I was sure he could do _exactly_ that, but I was gambling on using a reason that would use Hagrid's total faith in the Headmaster's virtues.

"Dumbledore can keep a secret," Hagrid insisted, no idea how accurate his statement was. "I believe he should know."

"Albus didn't come as close to killing him as I did," I replied, starting to lose my patience.

"That's why you should include him," Hagrid said. Flitwick was frowning, he looked unsure about which side to take. On the one hand, adding an extra mind to the plan would make it less risky. On the other hand, Albus had invaded _his_ mind too, when he had proved the trustworthiness of the Order members.

"If I tell Albus, he'll tell Severus Snape, his spy on You-Know-Who," I fished wildly for a reason. "And Albus may think Severus is trustworthy, but he is not. Any plan that centers around saving James Potter's life, and he'll do everything he can to make sure it fails."

"Fawkes said Snape can be trusted, and Dumbledore trusts him," Hagrid said. "You could swear him to secrecy or something, he'll agree when he sees how necessary it is."

"Albus trusted Pettigrew," I replied. Hagrid scowled. "I don't like it," he said finally. "But he used the phoenix to check again, all of us are trustworthy. Even Snape."

I shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not taking chances, though."

"You're taking chances by not having Dumbledore help. Even with Filius, I, and Sirius all put together we won't put up enough of a distraction as Dumbledore will."

My patience died in an instant. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sirius's eyes widen in alarm. It was muted as I opened my mouth again to say, "I don't tr-"

"If Albus comes along," Sirius said loudly, interrupting over my voice, "then Voldemort will run away, because he fears Dumbledore. The trap will not work then. It actually makes more sense to have three _less_ powerful wizards acting as the distraction because then he'll try to power through, and try to kill everyone there. We need him to stay, and fall into the trap. If Albus is there _at all_ , Voldemort will know and he'll leave instead of continuing to attack." I almost sighed in relief, but I didn't know if Hagrid would accept that reason. And I'd blundered again; if I'd said what I wanted to, I probably would have lost Hagrid's participation in this affair.

"If Albus knows," Padfoot continued, "he'll want to come himself, and that means Voldemort will run instead of attacking and falling into the trap. We can still tell him about all of this, but only _after_ Voldemort comes to the fake location. It's too dangerous now, the more important thing is making sure Voldemort doesn't leave so we can kill him. Albus comes, he leaves."

Hagrid looked considering.

"Are you going to be part of this too, Sirius? You know some of the basic outline of this plan, but not the particulars. Miss Porter may need to explain again-" Flitwick started.

"Share a Pensieve memory with him, I'm too tired to explain again," I waved my hands around. "First of all, Filius – you _are_ a schoolteacher. Hopefully You-Know-Who won't make his attack in the middle of the school day or you'll have to suddenly vanish from the classroom to total confusion, but be prepared if that happens."

"I have a Teaching Assistant," Flitwick smirked.

"Oh, good."

(line break)

 ** _November 10, 1981_**

 ** _11:00 PM_**

 ** _John MacDonald's house_**

Three Aurors and one Azkaban warden sat a table.

"I'm glad with the kills we have so far," Louis Ackermann spoke, "but I'm a bit disappointed. Dolohov was Russian and he didn't have Wizengamot protection. Travers was a pureblood, but not so well-connected that people would pay much attention to him being killed. But look at this – there are all of these people we _know_ are murderous Death Eaters, but we can't actually kill or even disappear them because of the _uproar from pureblood supremacists_ if we did? And where is Porter, she said she'd be helping us plan every night."

"I have a pre-recorded message," spoke the aged wizard on his left. "She said she had some important other personal business to attend to, and it should be working right about… now." He tapped his wand to the Pensieve projector. An image flashed into existence next to the four of them.

"Hello and welcome," said the giant illusory form of Alissa Porter. "Sorry I could not get here for tonight's meeting. As Kyle may have intimated to you all, there was some personal business I had to attend to. You may have noticed the list I provided of Death Eaters that may not be able to be targeted for the time being, either because of their statuses as Lords of pureblood supremacist houses, or because they are actually too dangerous to target, or both."

"Yes," the Azkaban warden growled. "I don't see why we shouldn't kill them anyway."

The illusion did not notice his statement. It was a pre-recorded message, after all. "You will notice that some Death Eaters are not on this list. Fenrir, Jugson, Phillips, Gibbon, Ivanov, Avery, MacNair, and the Bletchleys are not on this list. I have discussed this list with Bartemius Crouch, Sr. at length. The Lestranges, Gabriel Greengrass, Yaxley, and Selwyn are on this list because they are all too dangerous to go after with the current resources. The others – Parkinson, Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Montague, and Bulstrode – all have extensive legal backing, even in the midst of the chaos caused by Voldemort. So we will have to be cautious with them. Of course, we will get to all of them eventually.

"What makes Yaxley dangerous to go after is that he has had the good sense to always have a human presences revealing charm on his person, so an attempt to sneak up on him will probably not work. He also has an uncanny ability to sense when someone means him harm, so he'll be pretty unlikely to meet the fates of, say, Travers or Mulciber. _And_ he has a Hand of Glory, so it's safe to assume he has some way of blinding his attackers. Selwyn is dangerous because he hangs around the Lestranges and Voldemort so often. Alone, by himself, he's not that much trouble. However, I would recommend not attacking him for the time being because we don't know if he has some way to alert the Lestranges and Voldemort to come to his aid if attacked. The Lestranges are self-explanatory. However, I have been provided a piece of parchment with listed instructions for contacting some Curse-Breakers, so going after Gabriel Greengrass will soon become an option. They will arrive here by Apparition in about two days' time. Do _not_ attack before then, or before the Curse-Breakers have their setup ready to break through. It's only through extensive preparation that we have even killed _five_ so far. These Curse-Breakers will also help with dealing with the protections around the homes of Malfoy, etc.

"It is crucially important, when attacking those Death Eaters who have extensive legal backing, to capture but _not kill them_."

Ackermann looked positively enraged, as did Worthington and Fletcher.

"We have to capture them and then destroy their credibility in such a way that their legal backers will not want to help them. So the Curse-Breakers who are visiting have been instructed to bring Veritaserum, Befuddlement Draughts, and Babbling Beverages. Hailey already has the Draught of Living Death. Louis, as the Azkaban warden, you have possession of a Medallis Veritas. Unfortunately, you only have one, so we'll have to run this one at a time. By the way, if we're unable to compel them to confess anything, we'll make it look like they all murdered each other. Then their legal backers, who are used to backing the same bunch of purebloods, won't know who to back when they all appeared to have killed each other. But this is very important: _you cannot do any of this before two days are up and the Curse-Breakers are here_."

The Aurors looked satisfied; the Azkaban warden looked impatient. And he was impatient. Even though more had happened to satisfy his vengeance in the last week alone than he had ever hoped for, two days seemed a long time to wait for more revenge. Almost too long. He itched for more.

"I wonder why she didn't tell us all of this in person," Fletcher said. The illusion spoke again.

"Oh, and one more thing. When the Curse-Breakers arrive with the potions, that will be the solution to the Mulciber dilemma. Of course, we'll release him back to the Dark Lord while he's babbling about arrant nonsense to make it more likely that he will be the target of a Legilimency probe. Also, I have been making arrangements for another plan to deal with the Dark Lord in case 'Operation 460' doesn't work. I didn't come here in person because I am still making the preparations for that. Sorry."

"I want to have been in on that plan," Fletcher grumbled, but the illusion had disappeared.

Words floated in the air where the illusion had previously been.

 _This pre-recorded message has ended. Replay? (Y/N)_

Larsen waved his wand again, dismissing the message.

(line break)

 ** _November 11, 1981_**

 ** _7:24 PM_**

 ** _The Potters'_** ** _real_** ** _safehouse_**

"So I think it would be useful," I was saying, "if we managed to find a way to have some sort of spells that are similar to that map of the school that you have, for the Ministry, or for the Order's location, or for Hogsmeade."

James frowned. "Most of the spellwork that went into that map was actually Remus's," he admitted. "And Remus has not replied to the letters written by Sirius, Lily, or myself. Without his insight, duplicating a map like this would be quite hard."

"Hmm," I frowned. "That could make things difficult. Are you sure you cannot Confund the map to make it believe it is examining the Ministry, or Hogsmeade?"

James looked incredulous. "I think half the reason we were able to make that map was because we had already seen almost every single room in the castle before making it. I don't know the entire layout of the Ministry or Hogsmeade. I don't know the entire layout of my family ancestral manor."

"You can hardly wait on Remus to reply, since he has just cause to be angry with the rest of the Marauders," I said, thinking out loud. "But there has got to be some way to watch out for Death Eaters who are entering the Ministry. It's not like the Ministry is going to do something like put up an anti-Dark Mark ward."

"Well, a lot of Death Eaters have family members on the Wizengamot, that would be a hard measure to push through," said Lily. "And-" she stumbled suddenly, which was unusual. She was now surrounded in silver light, which seemed to be flickering.

James stared in consternation.

"Fidelius," she gasped. The light died. "The location in Potter Manor – he uncovered it somehow. But I've been in here this whole time."

"I suspected it would come to this," I said, frowning, "and James' father's portrait discussed it. The highly conspicuous location, suddenly disappearing from a map? Voldemort would be right that something was hidden, although he'd be wrong about you actually being there. Now, please stay put. I have something important to do."

James and Lily frowned in consternation, then realization.

"No, you're not," James said, but I was activating my Switching Spell. I disappeared, leaving a stuffed tiger behind in my place.

(line break)

 ** _Potter Manor_**

The Potter ancestral home was on fire. Voldemort was laughing maniacally, certain that the Potters were inside, as he directed the fire to consume more and more of the house. His assumption was only reinforced by the screaming inside – screaming, that, in fact, seemed to be coming from one of the portraits.

I vibrated my Protean-Charmed coin, alerting three wizards, and three wizards in particular. Then I brought out my Protean-Charmed parchment, waiting about two seconds. In that time, three letter _Ys_ showed up on the parchment: one in Flitwick's handwriting, one in Sirius Black's, and one in Hagrid's. They were all still in this, despite the danger. I threw three more stuffed tigers on the ground, and then activated the Switching Spells.

Flitwick, Sirius, and Hagrid materialized into existence. They looked around for a second in confusion, then gathered themselves. The tigers disappeared. I slapped the lot of them with Deafening Charms, as we had discussed in last night's preparations.

Voldemort's laughing stopped. He had realized the presence of intruders. He hadn't seen us at first, because our appearance point was behind the house, and Voldemort was in front of it. But he had _felt_ us appearing. Sirius took out his broom, and he and Hagrid leapt upon it. I slammed a Disillusionment Charm on Hagrid, then faded from view myself. Then I took out _my_ Disillusionment Charm, and flew to the skies. Flitwick also went invisible, but he would not be using a broom.

Sirius zoomed to the side, appearing in Voldemort's field of vision. Voldemort's face hardened into anger. "Sirius Black," he sneered. "So Potter planned this, too? You won't be able to get him out of that house before everything burns, you know."

Sirius yelled in pretend rage, pretending to be as angry as he would be as if the Dark Lord had _really_ trapped his best friend and his family in a burning house. He rained lethal spell after lethal spell down on the Dark Lord, screaming incoherently the entire time. It was essential that the Dark Lord believe his enemies weren't prepared for this, that they had nothing but an unorganized feral assault that could easily be refuted. I zoomed around to the other side of the house, and drew out one of my Undetectable Extension Charm bags. For now, the Fiendfyre was confined to the house, but I also knew the instant the house was destroyed, it would come for us too. I moved a safer distance away from the house.

Voldemort was easily deflecting Sirius' spells, but was frowning in confusion. He seemed to realize that Sirius would hardly come here alone, even if he _was_ unreasonably angry. I took one of my Undetectable Extension Charm bags, threw it into the air, and then cast _Diffindo_ on it. Almost immediately, a hundred thousand liters of water burst forth from the contents, heading in all directions. I cast _Impervius_ so the water wouldn't touch me. I knew the water wouldn't do that much more than inconvenience Voldemort, especially because Albus Dumbledore used water spells so often in _his_ fights against him, but everything was a distraction.

The Dark Lord's eyes widened in surprise as he saw the water coming towards him, but he adapted well enough. He pointed his wand at the water and _jerked_ some of it upwards. Sirius, on the broomstick, barely dodged in time. Most of the water was still heading towards him, though, so Voldemort cast the _Impervius_ on himself and returned his attention towards knocking Sirius out of the air. I Banished myself backwards a few meters, then flew a bit up into the air, where there wasn't that much water. And then I cast an area-wide Supersensory Charm, at the same time that Flitwick revealed himself and sent a head-exploding curse right at Voldemort's face. Voldemort deflected the spell back at Flitwick, but I couldn't see the results. I was casting another area-wide Supersensory Charm and layering it over the first one. I could hear Hagrid roaring as Sirius dropped the invisibility on him. The large man was charging right at Voldemort. I layered _another_ Supersensory Charm over the first two, as Voldemort simply _vanished_ the earth right under Hagrid's feet. Hagrid _jumped_ over the hole, going right for Voldemort with his fists. Flitwick transfigured a spear and Banished it at Voldemort's chest, while Sirius switched angles on the broom to try to ram Voldemort from behind. While this was happening, I cast a Deafening Charm on myself, then brought out a Wizarding Wireless radio. I turned it up to full volume, and then hit it with a _Sonorous_ Charm.

And then, Voldemort _yelled_ , a scream of raw, magical power. I slammed up a physical shield of iron to protect myself, but even so, I went crashing backwards. I registered Hagrid, flying backwards only two meters, before picking himself up and charging Voldemort again. Sirius, broomstick and all, crashing backwards into a tree. Flitwick's spear disappearing in mid-air, although the Charms Professor's shield protected him, personally, from the Dark Lord's counterattack. He was disoriented, though.

I staggered to my feet and slammed the radio with another noise amplification charm, this one a lot more powerful than the previous one. A truly loud noise assaulted everyone's ears, now.

Well, it would have, if Filius, Hagrid, Sirius, and I were not all deaf. It was Voldemort, and only Voldemort, who was hearing a radio broadcaster talk about ninety times louder than normal. He stumbled, from the pain in his ears. He slashed his wand forward, and my iron shield, already weakened from his earlier attack, shattered in one hit. A volley of spells followed them. I jumped to the right, hurled two quick lightning spells at him, then conjured a lion and scrambled behind it.

As I had predicted, Voldemort deflected them back at me easily enough, and the lion died rather messily, but the point had not been to _hit_ him with the lightning. The point was that lightning was already bright enough if you were in close range of it, and with four area-wide Supersensory Charms in effect, it was even brighter. The Dark Lord would now be blinking bright spots out of his vision, _and_ he was the only wizard who was also hearing a radio broadcaster talk ninety times louder than he was supposed to.

And I was still invisible, although now the Dark Lord had seen me conjure the iron wall and the lion, so that wasn't worth much. I slashed open another Undetectable Extension Charmed bag, and a ridiculously large amount of Quaffles appeared, all charmed to attack Voldemort. Of course, I didn't think they'd actually be able to harm him, but the point was to disappear from his field of vision. I took the broomstick again and flew into the air, keeping an invisible Undetectable Extension Charmed bag in front of me so that if Voldemort did see and curse me, he'd hit the bag… and invite another torrent of water against himself.

Unfortunately, Voldemort was a wizard who was quick on his feet. Despite his disorientation from his senses being assaulted, the Quaffles had all stopped in mid-air before reaching him, and dropped to the ground. The water had been mass-evaporated by another spell. Flitwick was dueling with Voldemort, and doing pretty well, but he was losing ground, and quickly. Sirius was struggling to free himself from when arms of a tree had come to life and wrapped themselves around him. Hagrid was imprisoned by another tree, but he had one hand free and was hacking his way free with an axe. An axe, that I had no idea how he got, because I had not given it to him.

I saw, quickly, that the only reason Sirius and Hagrid were alive, and the Supersensory Charms still up, was because Flitwick was not allowing Voldemort the opportunity. Although on the back foot against Voldemort, he was hurling spells as lethal as ever, and Voldemort couldn't afford to take a second to distract himself to kill one of them, or to dismiss even one of the Supersensory Charms, or to use a deafening spell on himself.

Voldemort cast an area-wide Banisher again, but Flitwick's shield was up and protected him from harm. Nevertheless, he was forced back a few steps. The Dark Lord used the respite from his opponent's defense to apply a Deafening Charm to himself, but the Charms Professor did not stay on the defense for long, conjuring a fire whip and targeting Voldemort's face with it. Still in the process of applying the Deafening Charm, the Dark Lord hastily spun away, angered at having been forced to dodge. The Head of Ravenclaw house brought down the fire whip again, but this time it deflected off of Voldemort's shield. Flitwick dragged the fire whip across the shield, but it did not give. Voldemort thrust out his hand, summoning the professor to him against his will. I attempted to cut off this idea at the pass by hurling two more lightning spells at him, at an angle not covered by the shield. The lightning rebounded off, heading in my direction, but I jerked the broom wildly to the left, avoiding the rebounded spells. The Supersensory Charms were still up, so even if the lightning didn't hit him it would overload the Dark Lord's sense of sight. Voldemort, who was now frustratingly calm, extended the shield so that it covered his head, too, but did not let up his spell on Flitwick; the professor did not stop careening towards him. The man's eyes were wide with panic as he attempted to stop himself from being summoned.

There was only one thing to do now.

" _Avada Kedavra_." The spell that couldn't be blocked. The real deal, no tricks or fake Killing Curses. It was the only chance of getting through Voldemort's shield. It took me a while before I realized I was not the only one who had spoken. A jet of green light had left Voldemort's position, heading for the Charms Professor's. I panicked. I _thought_ my next spell. The broomstick vanished, and I hastily applied a Cushioning Charm to prevent myself from falling.

The broomstick rematerialized into existence right in front of Flitwick, taking the spell and exploding into splinters. I saw Voldemort, murder in his eyes, as he got up from the ground where he'd crash-landed to avoid the Killing Curse. I saw Hagrid, finally freeing himself from the tree that Voldemort had bound him to, moving to free Sirius from _his_ tree. I threw another lightning spell at Voldemort, before conjuring another lion in the way of the inevitable rebound. It was about preventing him from disabling the Supersensory Charms now. The extremely loud radio wasn't doing much, as Voldemort had recently used the Deafening Charm on himself.

The plan was shot to hell, I knew. But at least it was working better than I thought it was going to. I couldn't believe I had been thinking of trying this alone. I'd have been dead in ten seconds. The only reason I was even surviving this long was because Voldemort's attention had been elsewhere while I set up my ambush tactics.

Voldemort was yelling something – something no one could hear, actually – while trying to blink the bright spots out of his eyes. Hagrid yelled, throwing his axe forward. I brought out _another_ Undetectable Extension Charmed bag and slashed that one open, too, now using a spell to direct the contents right towards Voldemort. Ice projectiles with nice sharp pointy ends converged on the Dark Lord.

Voldemort gestured, and the axe lost momentum mid-throw and fell to the ground. He gestured again, and the ice projectiles stopped. But the bag continued to spew ice daggers at him, and he had to pour more and more power into the spell to stop the increased number of projectiles in mid-air. I hid a _lot_ of ice in that bag.

So Voldemort lost his patience and set the whole batch of ice daggers on fire, assuming they would melt.

The ice did _not_ melt. The ice sublimated, from dry ice to carbon dioxide. Without allowing him any time to suss out what had just happened, I cast a wind spell to blow the gas in the Dark Lord's direction. Then I signaled to Flitwick, and he and I applied Bubble-Head charms. The professor circled around back to Hagrid and applied the charm to him also.

The Dark Lord was coughing, severely off-balance by the events. Even with his magically enhanced endurance factor, his vision had only just managed to restore itself fully, and now he was gasping for air and trying to breathe. Focusing was hard. He tried to cast a Bubble-Head himself, but Flitwick interrupted him with a head-exploding curse, forcing him to block and disrupt his concentration. The spell rebounded and made a conjured mouse's head explode. I led with another volley of dry ice daggers – this time I used a modified version of some of the more regular ice spells – then cast _Incendio_ myself, so Voldemort would have to breathe in more of the stuff.

Take that, you sucker. The power he knew not: Muggle chemistry.

Immortal Dark Lord he may be, but he still needed to _breathe_ , and I knew enough Muggle science to know that large amounts of carbon dioxide would make that difficult. Really difficult. Hagrid had picked up the axe and was stalking towards the now quite impotent Dark Lord, as he tried to support himself. Unfortunately, he wasn't completely out of it and was still managing to block the spells that Professor Flitwick was sending at him, to try to finish him off.

So I set fire to _another_ volley of dry ice daggers. Voldemort crashed to the ground, unable to stand.

And then Sirius shouted – though I couldn't hear him – with alarm. The last of Potter Manor's magical resistance to Fiendfyre had just crumbled, and the last brick was consumed. Now, the Fiendfyre was free and heading towards us.

Damn. I'd been too focused on Voldemort to remember that it wasn't normal fire that he'd been using on the house. Now I faced the problem of deciding whether to keep going to kill/discorporate Voldemort, or disengage and assure our survivals – when doing so probably meant very well that the Dark Lord would never fall into a trap like this again.

We were pressing the attack, no question. The Dark Lord couldn't even stand at this point

He continued laughing, but then Flitwick launched a renewed assault, sending spells at Voldemort as fast as he could. But he, too, was tired from the fight, even though he didn't have the tremendous disadvantage of not being behind a Bubble-Head. I added some of my own spellfire to the mix, but unfortunately Voldemort somehow retained the attention to block it.

So I added an _Avada Kedavra_ to my spells. Somehow, even as disoriented as he was, the Dark Lord dropped his magical shield and raised a physical one to take the spell, and it went zooming back at its caster. I swore as I sidestepped to the left, as everyone readied their next spells.

Everyone except Hagrid. The half-man, half-giant barreled forward into the shield, shattering it and throwing Voldemort himself backwards. Voldemort hit Hagrid with a Banisher on instinct, but it didn't even send him back half a meter.

The Fiendfyre was almost upon us. Voldemort was more defenseless than he'd ever been in this entire war, but there was a good chance that we wouldn't be able to 'kill' him, depriving him of his body, before the flames reached us.

Sirius was not paying attention to the battle, his attention focused upon controlling the Fiendfyre and halting its pursuit. For some reason, it didn't enter any of our minds to leave the scene. The euphoria from almost experiencing victory may have rotted our brains, made all of us Gryffindors.

Voldemort managed to narrowly dodge one of Hagrid's punches, but managed to apply a speed charm to himself in the process. And then, seeming to realize he could not win or even break even, when he was the only one struggling to breathe, he zoomed off, fleeing full-tilt in the opposite direction. The 'flight' response had kicked in. Flitwick and I applied one speed charm each to Hagrid, and one to ourselves also in case that wasn't enough, following the giant man.

Hagrid took off with a running leap, tackling the fleeing Dark Lord and bringing him crashing to the ground. He struggled with him, but clearly had the upper hand because the Dark Lord was not used to physical brawling tactics.

But then Voldemort dispelled Hagrid's Bubble-Head Charm, causing him to cough and struggle to breathe also. It defied logic that he could still think of good tactics when he was barely conscious at all, but somehow he was.

But it didn't matter that much, as the wizard now had no shields, physical or magical, to protect him. Bubble-Head, speed charm, and all, I crashed into the man.

" _Expelliarmus_ ," Flitwick said. My wand and Hagrid's axe flew away from their owners, but Voldemort's wand did not.

…It must have had an anti-summoning charm on it. Fuck.

One of Voldemort's eyes snapped open, seeming to understand, somehow, even in his delirium, exactly what had just happened. That he, in the tangle of limbs that was himself and me and Hagrid, was the only one who had a wand now.

I did not allow him time to act upon that realization. I elbowed the Dark Lord in the throat, as hard as I could. Then I punched him in the throat. And then I did it again. And again. And again. Those weren't spells, so his reflexes at blocking those wouldn't be nearly as good. He needed something other than magic to block that, but I bet that old Voldy had not been in a Muggle-style fight for over fifty years.

And then he ripped the Bubble-Head off of my head. Failing to register what had happened for one split-second only, I automatically punched him in the throat again.

And then my vision filled with red. From… a Stunning Spell? I had time enough for one dim, muted moment of panic. _Fuck. We were so close. Should have waited for Operation 460._

(line break)

Slowly, Professor Filius Flitwick lowered his wand, and looked at the three motionless forms of Alissa Porter, Lord Voldemort, and Rubeus Hagrid. Was it… over?

He had to admit, he didn't think they'd get this far. That this would end unfortunately for the ambushers, yes. That this would _also_ end badly for the target? That, he didn't expect.

A stirring of motion alarmed him. Had the area-effect Stunner not been completely effective? One of You-Know-Who's fingers just twitched. The professor's panic acted for him.

" _Confringo. Confringo. Confringo!_ " One blast took off his wand hand, the second his chest, the third his head.

Lord Voldemort was dead. But there was one more thing he had to do.

"Trippy!" he called, summoning the house-elf he had informed, as part of their contingency plan should the ambush go sour. "Get them out of here," he motioned to Porter and Hagrid, "then get him" – he pointed to Sirius, who was now running full-tilt in the opposite direction from the Fiendfyre, finally unable to stop its pursuit any longer – "and me."

A second later, the elf, the assassin, and the half-giant all disappeared.

Sirius was running, screaming incoherently at the top of his lungs even though neither he, or Flitwick, could hear what he was saying. Flitwick raised a hand for calm as he levitated the motionless, headless form of You-Know-Who, then chucked the body at the Fiendfyre. As the younger generations said, "There is no kill like overkill," although this may have been stretching the definition even for them, because when uoung Mister Black reached his former professor's position and finally looked back, he stared in astonishment at the sight of the flames devouring their creator.

A second after that, Trippy returned and linked arms with the professor and his former prankster student. The world disappeared, just a few seconds before the flames converged on their position also.

And so it was that nobody saw a furiously hissing ethereal wraith exit the flames, screaming all manner of curses and epithets.

(line break)

"Ugh," I groaned as I sat up. "Where am I?" I looked around. Oh, right, this was a St. Mungo's hospital bed. I've been here before.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," said a voice. I struggled to place where it was from, then realized it was Headmaster Dumbledore's.

"Oh, shit," I said.

"You acted extremely rashly," Dumbledore continued.

Well, I couldn't deny _that_.

"You placed one of my students, my trusted groundskeeper, one of my professors, and one of my house-elves in mortal danger for your mad, mad plan."

"They volunteered. They knew how dangerous it would be," I said weakly. "And we came a lot closer to killing him than you did."

"No," Dumbledore replied. "You did not."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Flitwick demanded, walking into the room. "Albus, I don't see why you are trying to diminish the magnitude of the accomplishment here. Yes, it was an incredibly dangerous, risky, stupid, and Gryffindor idea, but also, it succeeded. We killed him." So it had worked? Voldemort was indeed weak enough, at the end, to be defeated and removed from his body?

"Lord Voldemort will return," Dumbledore said solemnly, "and the world will be in terrible danger when he does."

"The man had his head blown off," Flitwick argued. "Then his corpse was tossed into burning Fiendfyre. There is no coming back from that."

I frowned. I didn't remember that happening. I guess at the end, Voldemort was so close to unconsciousness that he couldn't defend himself from Flitwick, even after Hagrid and I got knocked out. I shuddered. I knew that the plan had had a better chance than most of working, but it was still somewhat shocking to think of how close it had come to failing. Even Voldemort's 1981 endurance was off the charts, really.

"There are steps," Dumbledore said gravely, "that Lord Voldemort may have taken, many years ago, to protect himself from death. They are why he boasts of being immortal."

I was reeling. Was that all it would take, this time around, for Dumbledore to tell us that Voldemort couldn't be killed? That information hadn't become known until 1997 in my timeline, and we had later found out that the Headmaster had known the whole time but not thought to disclose that vitally important secret. Why would he choose to reveal this information now? Voldemort had been temporarily killed on Halloween, 1981, in _my_ timeline, yet everyone seemed to truly believe he was dead for that whole time. Albus Dumbledore hadn't revealed that information to anyone originally – why would he _now_? Was it because the Dark Lord's 'killers' were alive?

"Voldemort is immortal?" Sirius said, sounding sick. "That's not just some boast of hubris he was saying. He is actually immortal?"

"Indeed, Sirius," the Headmaster said. "Lord Voldemort is immortal."

"He sure didn't look immortal," Hagrid cackled. "We killed him dead!"

"Are you going to tell us anything about how he is immortal?" Sirius said, folding his arms. "People are not just _born_ immortal. And Flamel may be high bloody drunk on the Elixir of Life, but if he was beheaded and thrown into Fiendfyre, he would be dead all the same. There must be some other mechanism of immortality. Magical regeneration of all wounds to the person? That would be nice, but it would not survive decapitation."

"I have suspicions, but nothing concrete," Dumbledore answered. "Yet the fewer people who know about it, the better."

I glared at the old man from the hospital bed. "How many people are you going to get killed, Albus, because you didn't tell people _who had the ability to beat him_ how to permanently kill him? Voldemort may return, indeed, and kill a lot more people on his return because he will be very angry that someone got the better of him. And all of those people would be out of danger if you had bothered to tell anyone even your _suspicions_ on how he can survive his own death. You're angry at me because my actions risked and endangered innocent lives. That's fine; I am too. But your actions do as well."

Dumbledore straightened up, looking furious. But this wasn't even the angriest I'd ever seen him. "Do not suggest that I do not take the safety of everyone behind these walls and the walls of Hogwarts seriously," he said sternly. His voice was full of dangerous, barely controlled _power_ , and I flinched back a little. But not enough.

"Then _take_ their safety seriously," I snapped back. "Take their safety seriously, and tell someone other than yourself about why you think Voldemort could survive something like this. And maybe, the people who _would_ be victims of Voldemort's possible second reign won't be, because maybe people other than you have a solution to this problem."

Dumbledore answered, "Unlikely. Voldemort is fated to be destroyed by a child of prophecy, after all. Therefore that child will be the one to unravel the mechanism of Lord Voldemort's immortality and destroy him. It has been foretold as his destiny, and there is nothing to prevent that. You have tried to take the prophecy into your own hands, or you did not know that your attempt could not have possibly succeeded, when you four attempted to kill Lord Voldemort last night."

"Albus," I replied, "you have not the _slightest_ idea what that prophecy means."

(line break)

 ** _November 11, 11:54 PM_**

" _Bellatrix_ ," whispered the wraith. " _I am going to need your help_."

 _ **Further note: Yeah, this chapter took a while. It was pretty difficult trying to find a way for tactics, even inventive ones involving knowledge of Muggle science and Muggle brawling, to triumph against a wizard who is canonically, powerful enough to stomp almost anyone, and keep Voldemort and his opponents at believable levels. I am still not sure if this worked.**_

 _ **Lisa's persuasion skills are good, but they're not nearly as good as she thinks they are and she almost cost herself Hagrid's help - which would have meant death in the Potter Manor scene - had Sirius not come up with a better excuse.**_

 _ **Also, the argument with Dumbledore was originally really long, so I cut it off early in this chapter. It will feature more heavily in the next one.**_


End file.
